<ul><li>Bobacino, developer of a robotic boba tea bar, has raised USD 1.4 million through equity crowdfunding on StartEngine, with participation from more than 1,200 investors. The round valued the company at USD 7 million. The company launched the campaign in November 2020, aiming to raise a maximum of USD 3 million.</ul>

• Bobacino intends to use the funds for further product development and its go-to-market activities.

• Reportedly, the unit would take only 1–2 weeks to be installed and cost only USD 50,000, vs a traditional coffee shop that takes roughly a year to set up, costing approximately USD 200,000–USD 375,000. The company claims installing Bobacino tea bars will help generate profit margins of roughly 31% compared to 4.1% profit margins at traditional coffee shops. Furthermore, this could reportedly bring down employee wages to roughly 10% of revenue (vs. an average of 26% at traditional coffee shops).

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: Raising equity through crowdfunding is becoming increasingly popular in the restaurant industry robotics space. Startups that recently closed such campaigns include pizza-making robot developer Piestro ( earlier this month), smoothie-making robotic kiosk developer Blendid ( September 2021), and pasta-making robot developer DaVinci Kitchen (July 2021). </ul>