In an era defined by automation and artificial intelligence, Chef Robotics is quietly but powerfully transforming one of the most labour-intensive industries on the planet: food production. Chef Robotics is a US-based company that builds AI-powered robots that automate food assembly tasks in manufacturing, solving labour shortages with scalable, flexible automation solutions. IPO Central spoke with Rajat Bhageria, the company’s founder and CEO, for an in-depth look at the company’s mission, market strategy, growth plans, and vision for the future of robotics in commercial kitchens.
The Beginning
“Chef builds AI-enabled robots for the food industry,” Rajat begins, summarizing what has become a mission born from a simple but urgent reality: there’s a massive labour shortage in food service and manufacturing. Companies across the U.S. are struggling to hire and retain workers, which forces them to operate below capacity or rely on expensive overtime labour.
According to a study by OpenTable, there were about 450,000 open positions in the restaurant industry in the beginning of 2024 with a massive 62% of operators expressing that there aren’t enough staff to meet the demand. While these data points are specific to the restaurant segment, the labour shortage is well documented in other aspects of the bigger food industry.
“This is where Chef steps in,” he explains. “Traditional automation isn’t flexible enough for the dynamic nature of food production. What we do is combine off-the-shelf hardware with cutting-edge AI to deliver flexible, scalable automation that works.”
Read Also: Ashok Kumar Jain Portfolio, Net Worth, and More
From Vision to Venture
When asked how the idea took root, Rajat speaks with clarity and purpose. “I was looking at robotics from a market-first lens. What’s the biggest tractable labour market for robotics? The food industry checked every box—it’s enormous, it has the highest labour shortages in the U.S., and it hasn’t seen successful automation.”
He adds that this isn’t his first entrepreneurial venture. In college, he co-founded a startup that used computer vision to assist the visually impaired by recognizing objects and relaying that information verbally. After a small exit and a 7 years running a venture fund, Rajat turned his full attention to Chef Robotics.
Early Challenges and the Road to Product-Market Fit
Chef Robotics didn’t start out targeting food manufacturing. “Initially, we looked at restaurants,” Rajat says. “But the economics were tough. Restaurant staff do everything from cutting to cooking to cleaning to assembling meals. That’s 50 different tasks—it’s hard to get ROI with a robot doing just one of them.”
That insight triggered a key pivot: focus on food manufacturing players like Amy’s and Chef Bombay instead. High volume, repetitive tasks, and more structured environments make these facilities a better fit for scalable robotics.
“We’ve made 50 million servings in production—that’s more than any other food robotics company out there, as far as we know,” Rajat points out, emphasizing that despite industry scepticism, Chef has broken through where others haven’t.
What Makes Chef Robotics Different?
So what is Chef doing differently? Rajat is quick to point to the company’s go-to-market strategy.
“Other startups either launched their own robotic restaurants or tried selling to restaurants directly. We chose to start with food manufacturing. It’s more constrained, but it allows us to ship robots into production, generate real training data, and improve continuously.”
This focus also feeds into a core advantage: data. “The more robots we deploy, the more data we get. The more data we get, the better our AI (Artificial Intelligence) becomes. The better our AI, the more problems we can solve for customers. That flywheel is our biggest differentiator.”
Despite the name “Chef,” the company isn’t replacing human chefs—or doing any cooking. “We take pre-cooked, pre-cut ingredients and handle tasks like scooping and assembling into trays. That process actually accounts for 60 to 70% of labour in fast casual restaurants or manufacturing lines.”
Manufacturing and Assembly Operations
Chef Robotics takes a pragmatic approach to its hardware. “We use as much off-the-shelf hardware as possible,” Rajat says. “We source parts globally but do final assembly in our Bay Area office. It’s not full-scale manufacturing—it’s final assembly.”
This lean model allows the team to stay agile and focus their innovation efforts on the software and AI models powering the robots.
Rajat Bhageria’s Vision: 1,000 Robots in Five Years
Looking ahead, Chef has a clear growth trajectory in mind. “Our goal is 1,000 robots in production within the next five years,” Rajat says. “That would represent roughly USD 100 million in annual revenue. But more importantly, it would mean more training data, better AI, and greater impact for our customers.”
Chef Robotics’ robots are not one-time sales. The company operates on a subscription model—Robot-as-a-Service. Customers pay an annual fee, and Chef Robotics continuously trains the robots to handle new ingredients and configurations.
Market Footprint and Expansion Strategy
While exact numbers are undisclosed, Rajat shares that Chef’s robots are operating in seven cities across the U.S. and Canada. The focus now is on expanding both within current customer sites and onboarding new ones.
“Some of our customers, like Amy’s Kitchen, have multiple plants—one in Oregon, another in Idaho, and one in California. We look at both deepening deployments in existing plants and expanding to new sites. It’s not exactly a hub-and-spoke model, but more of a dual-pronged approach: expansion within and across customers.”
Competitive Moats and Barriers to Entry
When asked about competitive defensibility, Rajat names data as the strongest moat. “This isn’t like language models where you can scrape the internet for training data. In food robotics, you can only get the data by deploying in the field. And the only way to do that is to build a useful robot.”
This leads to a virtuous cycle: more robots lead to more data, better models, greater usefulness, and more customer adoption. Domain expertise, patents, and deep customer relationships are other important entry barriers in this business. “Once you’re in a plant, customers don’t switch vendors easily—unless you screw up badly. It’s a sticky relationship.”
Customer Perception and Adoption
Are customers sceptical? Not really, Rajat says—because the pain point is real.
“There’s simply not enough labour. Traditional depositors and dispensers aren’t flexible. Customers are actively looking for better solutions.”
Chef reaches customers through direct outreach and marketing, but also receives inbound interest. “We’ve had customers contact us after seeing our marketing material. That’s always a great sign.”
On the Road to IPO
As a publication focused on public markets, we couldn’t help but ask: when does Chef plan to go public?
“It’s definitely a goal,” Rajat acknowledges. “Right now, we’re focused on reaching USD 100 million in annual revenue. That’s when the conversation about going public becomes real. For now, we’re fortunate to have strong access to private capital in San Francisco.”
The Team Behind the Vision
Chef Robotics is currently a 45-person team, with roughly half in technical roles. This balanced structure supports both software development and operations, ensuring the company can scale deployments while continuing to refine its core technology.
Chef Robotics Funding Snapshot
Total Funding Raised: USD 65.6M
- Equity: USD 38.8M
- Equipment Financing Debt: USD 26.75M
Series A Round (March 2025): USD 43.1M
- Equity: USD 20.6M
- Debt Financing: USD 22.5M (via Silicon Valley Bank)
Lead Investor: Avataar Venture Partners
Other Investors: Construct Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures, MFV Partners, Interwoven Ventures, HCVC, MaC Venture Capital, Red and Blue Ventures, Tau Partners, Alumni Ventures, Siddhi Capital, BOLD Capital Partners
Conclusion
Chef Robotics is more than a clever startup—it’s a carefully executed solution to one of the food industry’s most painful challenges. By focusing on flexible, AI-powered food assembly and leveraging a data-driven flywheel, Rajat Bhageria and his team are redefining what automation looks like in commercial kitchens. As they set their sights on 1,000 robots and USD 100 million in revenue, the question isn’t if Chef Robotics will scale—it’s how fast.
For more details related to IPO GMP, SEBI IPO Approval, and Live Subscription stay tuned to IPO Central.