Picnic, a pizza-making robot developer, has raised USD 16.3 million in a Series A funding round (including bridge funding of USD 3 million received last October) led by Thursday Ventures, with participation from Creative Ventures, Flying Fish Partners, and Vulcan Capital. This brings its total funding to USD 34.2 million.

The company intends to utilize the new capital to expand its team and commercial operations. It plans to announce system deployments and ramp up production later this year.

Along with the fundraising, Picnic also announced new strategic partnerships with foodservice companies, including Orion Land Mark, Ethan Stowell Restaurants, National Service Cooperative, and the financing solutions provider Baseline Hardware Financing. It plans to deploy the robots at restaurants, schools, stadiums, and hospitals.

Picnic debuted its first automated pizza assembly system in October 2019 and the second-generation robot a year later. Its conveyor belt and canister-based system allows high-volume pizza production (300 12" pizzas per hour or 180 18" pizzas per hour) with customizable toppings. The company operates on a Restaurant-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model using a subscription basis.