Dishcraft Robotics is using robots to save lots of reopening restaurants from creating more waste

Dishcraft Robotics features a simple pitch to corporate kitchens and restaurants that would potentially save plenty of single use plastic, non-compostable takeout containers, dishware and cutlery from ending up landfills.

Use its cleaning service which will drop off all the clean, reusable dishware and cutlery a restaurant or corporate kitchen could possibly need within the morning and devour all the dirty dishes, cups and silverware that the foodservice location uses throughout the day.

“In this model we lookout of the gathering and cleaning of dishes,” said Linda Pouliot, the company’s founder and chief military officer .

That’s the offer. Behind the scenes the corporate will use its compliment of robots which will pack up 10,000 pieces of dishware or cutlery to quickly and efficiently pack up the mess.

The restaurants, Pouliot says, have more inventory than they might possibly need — whilst Dishcraft only runs one drop-off and devour service throughout the day at corporate offices.

The company has just announced a $20 million round of funding which will expand its service beyond the company kitchen and into communities that are worried about the waste produced by the explosion in takeout that’s occurred as a results of the COVID-19 epidemic.

A green business model is at the guts of Dishcraft’s new pitch. the corporate launched in June of last year with a huge dishwashing robot that it had been debating selling to kitchens round the country. Now it’s settled on a services approach that creates its robotic-powered dishwashers a neater sell to businesses. “We saw that cloud kitchens took off… we’re an equivalent . We’re cloud dishwashing,” said Pouliot.

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The company features a collection system that works during a 25 mile radius and uses biodiesel to power its fleet of trucks that pickup and deliver the clean dishes, consistent with Pouliot.

The founding father of an automatic floor cleaning robotic service, Neato Robotics, Pouliot features a long history of applying high tech solutions to world problems.

Along with co-founder Paul Birkmeyer, the company’s chief technology officer and a former employee of SRI International, Pouliot founded Dishcraft in 2015. the 2 discussed the chance for a robotics business cleaning dishes over lunch at a restaurant. The restaurant’s dishwasher had called out sick for the day and therefore the head chef came to visit to spend a couple of minutes with the 2 entrepreneurs discussing the pains of the dishwashing business, Pouliot recalled.

The company’s technology involves the mixing of sensors, computer vision, machine learning, UV lighting, and innovative mechanics to autonomously sort, scrub, inspect, and rack dishware, the corporate said. Plates are cleaned and inspected multiple times using sensors which will spot miniscule particles invisible to the human eye, the corporate said.

Current customers include Affirm and foodservice company Guckenheimer, and therefore the company said it might announce others soon.

Image credit: Dishcraft Robotics

After an early investment from Lemnos Labs, the corporate moved from the garage where it had been prototyping its robotic designs and moved into Lemnos’ offices.

Pouliot may be a 15 year robotics industry veteran, and after Neato Robotics knew that the cleaning industry represented a special niche for robotics that not many other companies were pursuing.

Dishcraft currently works out of a cleaning facility in San Carlos, Calif. and can use a number of the capital it raised to expand the power because it builds out its to-go solution for cleaning reusable containers. “Communities and cities have an interest in additional sustainable solutions,” said Pouliot, which interest is driving demand for Dishcraft.

“For example… Alameda, Calif. has 300 restaurants and 100 have signed up for a zero waste initiative,” Pouliot said, which is creating interest at the town government level for Dishcraft’s services.

“With a cafeteria we’ve a set system and each day we devour the dishwares,” she said. “With cities there’ll be a specified drop off point and a system which will take all the wares back to our centralized hub and clean them and inspect them and deliver clean wares the subsequent day.”

The new $20 million are going to be wont to expand the amount of hubs. Funding for the new round was led by new investor Grit Ventures. Returning investors First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, Fuel Capital, and Lemnos also participated within the round, consistent with the corporate . As a results of the funding, Marc Randolph, co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, and Kelly Coyne, founder and partner at Grit Ventures, will join Dishcraft’s board of directors.

So far, Dishcraft has raised $46 million in venture funding.

“Even pre-COVID, Dishcraft was within the right direction|not off course”> on target to be a big force of disruption in the world of food services,” said Kelly Coyne, founder and partner at Grit Ventures, during a statement. “In recent years, robotics has introduced major operational improvements in traditional industry. especially , firms like Dishcraft that leverage RaaS (robotics-as-a-service) are ready to rapidly gain traction and sell effortlessly into long-stagnant industries.”