Ottonomy is approaching robotic delivery with a mind toward scaling where it can operate now as the broader robotic delivery industry matures. CEO Ritukar Vijay has a deep background in robotics, working for nearly 14 years on unmanned aerial drones, warehouse logistics robots and robotic vehicles as well. He said he and his fellow cofounders were working on autonomous cars when he realized the promise of driverless cars was still far off. “We came to the realization that autonomous cars will take some time to hit Main Street,” said Vijay. […]
As an opening salvo, the company is telling users their ‘diner impact score’, or how much they’ve saved themselves and restaurants by ordering through ChowNow. It’s all part of a plan to build a digital marketplace to rival those operated by companies such as DoorDash or Uber Eats.
WoodSpoon, the company that connects home chefs with hungry diners, is launching a B2B catering service. Founder Oren Saar said clients are using the service to lure work-from-home employees back into the office.
Serve Robotics just raised $13 million in a seed extension round to grow its sidewalk delivery bot operations in new markets and with new partners. The company was built inside Postmates under the company’s Postmates X division that explored cutting-edge technologies. When Postmates acquired a company called Lox in 2017, Dr. Ali Kashani came on board and brought degrees in computer vision and 3D imaging. He combined that with Postmates delivery data and co-founded the company’s robotics division. He said it was operations first for the adorable but uniquely rugged […]
When HungerRush acquired OrderAI last December, it was a novel way to execute all the no-contact orders out there, but now HungerRush CEO Perry Turbes wants to go a few steps further. “This is a little futuristic, but it’s the way I talk about it internally: We envision a world where a restaurant can turn off their phone system. Text ordering is a way to enable that,” said Turbes. HungerRush is a restaurant management system serving a multitude of tools to about 20,000 restaurants. Turbes said partners tap into all […]
In a new membership push, Uber has unveiled the all-service membership program Uber One. The new program, launched in mid-November and bundles perks for food delivery, rides, grocery delivery and all manner of Uber services. Julie Kim, director of membership marketing globally at the company, said the program is a way to enhance loyalty but also flex the multi-modal Uber muscle to provide more value for members. “Whatever the new normal is as we reemerge, we do know that a lot of behaviors and expectations have shifted,” said Kim. “As […]
In yet another demonstration of the desire for better ordering options, Union has raised $22 million in a Series B round. The company, which bills itself as “the first hospitality engagement platform that leverages industrial-grade data intelligence to deliver transformative experiences for guests, operators, and brands at the most popular venues” processes more than $1 billion in transactions annually. The hook for the latest round was helping operators embrace the digital transformation. Essentially, it’s a cloud-based point of sale with a focus on reaching the “fewest taps” for operators and […]
Grocery delivery heavyweight Instacart will begin testing a rapid grocery delivery program as early as February 2022, entering a field that is currently dominated by small startups.
DoorDash announced another acceleration of its speedy convenience delivery platform. The company said it would start making 15-minute DashMart deliveries with a new fleet of DoorDash-employed couriers. Launching first in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea, the program will feature more than 2,000 items from a new DashMart facility in the area. DoorDash President Christopher Payne said it’s the next step for ultra-convenience-minded consumers. “DoorDash is positioned to enter this emerging industry and provide consistent quality, speed and convenience that customers know and trust. Many New Yorkers already turn to DoorDash […]
The 2022 Future of Restaurants Survey Identifies trends in automation, labor, payments and more.
