If you’re looking to combine your love for cooking and artificial intelligence, then Miso Robotics is a company worth keeping on your radar.
Located in California, the company specializes in the development of robotic kitchen assistance for the food service industry.
With multiple reputable partnerships and a proven business, its products are helping restaurants increase productivity and improve their bottom line.
But is Miso Robotics a good investment?
In this article, we will analyze Miso Robotics and explain how to invest in this captivating company.
With artificial intelligence and robotics becoming more important than ever, Miso might be the perfect play for you.
What is Miso Robotics?
Miso Robotics is a developer of automated cooking robot systems in the food service robotics industry built on the framework of “creating robotics that eliminates dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks in restaurant kitchens.”
With many of the cooking and cleaning tasks being repetitive and boring in this industry, Miso’s robots alleviate the need for human labor by automating many of these monotonous responsibilities.
This, in turn, helps restaurants improve efficiency, reduce labor costs, and improve food safety, while also enabling employees to improve on more stimulating tasks like serving customers and learning how to operate the robotic systems.
Miso’s flagship product, Flippy 2, is a robotic arm that can fry nearly anything and is capable of adapting to and fitting in super tight kitchen spaces—Flippy 2 demonstrated 10-25% faster speeds and achieved labor costs equivalent to $4.55 per hour.
In addition to Flippy 2, the company also offers Flippy Lite, a small robot that focuses on a single product like seasoning; CookRight Coffee, an Artificial intelligence-powered system that creates the perfect cup of coffee; and Sippy, the world’s first POS-integrated automatic beverage dispenser and sealer.
To help integrate the system and provide real-time insights and analytics on kitchen performance, Miso also offers customers its software platform, Miso Platform, as part of its service offering.
By combining robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning, and data analytics, Miso Robotics’ system is a major improvement to a stagnating industry and is likely to be the future of the food service industry.
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Who are Miso Robotics’ Customers?
Miso Robotics primarily operates in the fast food industry, given the synergies between the tasks and functions of the robotic systems, though it is being adopted in real restaurants as well.
One such company is the Wings and Rings franchise which has adopted the Flippy 2 into its restaurants.
When discussing the adoption of Flippy 2, Bob Bafundo, COO of Wings and Rings said,
“We’ve been so impressed by our conversations with Miso and our initial tests of Flippy that we’re adding more menu items into our pilot. Flippy is consistent, dependable, and cooks our food even quicker than before without sacrificing the flavor-forward taste we’re known for.”
Other partners expressed similar experiences, making Miso a legitimate business in this market.
To date, the company’s robots operate in multiple well-known fast food brands, including Jack in the Box, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Buffalo Wild Wings, White Castle, and more.
As the company innovates further and more restaurants become aware of its products, it’s expected that this customer base will expand even more in the future.
Overall, Miso Robotics has a great foundation to build from.
Miso Robotics Management Team
With Miso Robotics offering such promising potential, it’s worth exploring its management team to understand who is running the show.
In August 2020, Miso appointed a new CEO, Mike Bell, to accelerate the company’s operational growth.
With Decades of experience in startup design, software integration, and the delivery market, Bell has been building on Miso’s early market success by assembling high-performance teams and fostering long-term partnerships with customers.
Before he was appointed CEO, Bell served as a board member for Miso Robotics and worked closely with former CEO and co-founder Buck Jordan.
This allowed for a seamless transition and enabled Jordan to leverage his venture capital expertise by improving investment opportunities in Miso—Buck Jordan now serves as Miso’s Chairman of the Board and President.
When discussing the appointment of CEO Mike Bell, Buck Jordan said,
“This is an extremely timely and strategic leadership shift for Miso Robotics. Interest is pouring in and we need to operationalize and scale faster than we had originally planned […] and Mike can get us there.”
Time will tell whether CEO Mike Bell and his team achieve all that they have set out to accomplish, though it appears that they are well underway to doing just that.
Miso Robotics Business Model
Rather than charging fast food restaurants up front for its products, Miso earns money by running a subscription-based model they call Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS).
On its website, it states that the monthly subscription services for its Flippy 2 begins at $3,000 per month, while the monthly fees for its other products are not mentioned.
By running a Robot-as-a-Service model versus charging for the product up front, not only do its customers benefit by reducing their upfront and maintenance costs, but it also allows Miso to generate more predictable and recurring revenues.
This results in higher profit margins for its customers while also ensuring that Miso makes money over the long run.
Furthermore, having a subscription service makes the Miso platform more worthwhile, as it will be able to integrate new products and applications seamlessly without experiencing many hiccups.
Overall, Miso Robotics’ business model is a proven success and demonstrates why the company has been able to produce more than 10 million servings per year thus far.
The Global Cooking Robot Market
It is clear that Miso Robotics has what it takes to serve the fast food market and restaurant industry, but how big is this opportunity exactly?
According to Justin Guinn at Toast, there are approximately 1.2 million restaurant locations in the United States.
Of these businesses, fast food restaurants are experiencing a 150% annual labor turnover rate, which is leading to a growing labor shortage of around 500,000 positions per month.
This issue becomes even more complicated internationally, where there are approximately 20.5 million restaurants, and of those restaurants, certain markets, like Europe, where European food service wages are as much as 50% higher than their US counterparts.
Fortunately, cooking robotics companies like Miso could alleviate these labor shortage challenges altogether.
For this reason, Verified Market Research predicts that the robot kitchen market will reach $4.4 billion in 2028, indicating a compound annual growth rate of 12.60%.
So, just in case you weren’t convinced that there was a demand for these products, now you can see why it may be worthwhile investing in this industry.
As life becomes even more automated in the future, new opportunities will likely arrive, thus expanding the market even further.
How to Invest in Miso Robotics
Unfortunately, you will have to wait to invest in Miso Robotics stock for the time being, as it is a private company.
That being said, the company has undergone multiple funding rounds, thus giving investors, like venture capitalists, the ability to buy steaks in the company.
As such, miso robotics now has over 25,000 shareholders, with the company raising $75 million in crown funding to date.
Moreover, in its most recent funding round, Series E, Miso reached a pre-money valuation of $500 million.
If you would like to invest and want to be informed of future funding rounds or a potential IPO, click the link here.
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Is Miso Robotics a Good Investment?
After analyzing Miso Robotics and the global fast food market, it is evident that the company boasts a lot of promise.
But is it a good investment?
Well, for one thing, the company is growing in a variety of ways, including the number of robots sent to customers, the number of partnerships established, and the amount of capital it has raised so far.
Moreover, it has a first-mover advantage with very little direct competition in its market.
However, with very little financial information available online, it is difficult to tell exactly how much money the business is making and whether or not it is profitable.
Although Miso Robotics is a private company, this is not a major concern since it will be required to disclose all financial information once it goes public.
If you were to invest in a funding round, you may receive additional information that would help you better understand the financial state of the business.
With that being said, I would argue that Miso Robotics is doing a lot of things right. Therefore, it is worth considering as an investment.
But, for the company to go from just a business on our watch list to a good investment would require it to demonstrate consistent financial performance and a sustainable competitive advantage.
For now, the best thing we can do is to stay updated on Miso’s development and determine if it fits within our own personal investment strategy.
Overall, the company produces fascinating products that are certain to improve what was once a stagnant industry.