Picnic

Picnic debuted its first automated pizza assembly system in October 2019. This conveyor belt and canister-based system allow high-volume pizza production (300 12" pizzas per hour or 180 18" pizzas per hour) with customizable toppings. Later in October 2020, Picnic unveiled its second-generation pizza-making robot, with product improvements including clear canisters that allow kitchen operators to monitor ingredient levels; changes to components allowing easier cleaning and maintenance; and multiple emergency stop buttons across different parts of the kitchen robot. Its system can also be used to assemble other food items such as sandwiches, salad bowls, tacos, and burritos.

The company operates using a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) business model on a subscription basis, charging USD 3,500 - 4,500 per month. Upon successful pilots at restaurant, hospitality, entertainment, and theme parks locations, the company made the robot available for pre-orders in August 2021 with plans to fulfill existing orders by the end of the year and plans to ship new orders by 2022.

Key customers and partnerships

Centerplate (a food and hospitality provider) and Zaucer (a restaurant chain) were among Picnic’s first customers for pilot testing of the product. The company also has strategic partnerships with food service companies, Orion Land Mark, Ethan Stowell Restaurants, and National Service Cooperative, as well as financing solutions provider Baseline Hardware Financing (May 2021). Picnic also announced several other deployments, namely at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada; T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington; at five universities in the US in partnership with Chartwells Higher Education (June 2022), and another in partnership with Speedy Eats (June 2022). The company also partnered with PizzaHQ (July 2022), MOTO (August 2022), and Domino’s (September 2022) to automate the restaurants’ pizza-making processes.

Picnic also has a August-2022 partnership with IoT-enabled self-service pickup stations developer Minnow, to deploy customized and automated mobile ordering and self-service pickup stations for its customers.

Funding and financials

In 2021, Picnic raised USD 20.5 million in a Series A funding round in two tranches; USD 4.2 million raised in July 2021, and USD 16.3 million in May 2021 (including bridge funding of USD 3 million received in October 2020) led by Thursday Ventures. The company earmarked the new capital to expand its team and commercial operations, announce system deployments, and ramp up production later in 2021.