On the TechTO stage ×1
First seen on a TechTO stage in 2026. Every TechTO talk is searchable — ask the archive about Nipun ↗
In their words
We are a food robotics company, but we don't sell machines, we sell food. We sell the best tasting food.
If your business plan is centric on purchasing an ABB robot arm, you don't have a business plan. You have a toy that my 14-year-old can play with.
Zume Pizza raised $400 million US dollars — seven years to launch an autonomous pizza. Couldn't do it. And here's a small company from Canada: we commercialized in 14 months and $1.2 million.
Around the web ×5
Quick answers
What does Appetronix build?
Fully autonomous restaurants — self-contained 'restaurant in a box' machines that cook made-to-order food and need only about four hours of one employee's time a day to run 24/7. The first, a Donatos pizza machine at the Columbus, Ohio airport, is the only restaurant there open 24 hours; Thai stir-fry and Mexican burrito-bowl machines are next, with the first Canadian unit planned for downtown Toronto in an Yves Behar-designed enclosure.
How does the business model work?
Appetronix gives the machine to food-service operators like HMSHost for free and takes roughly 20-25% of revenue, while the operator loads ingredients and handles day-to-day upkeep. Each machine does between $750K and $1.5M in sales, costs about $250-300K to build, and pays for itself within 6 to 18 months.
Who has backed the company?
Appetronix has raised about $12M US. N49P wrote the first check after Canadian VCs largely passed; following the Columbus launch, pizza partner Donatos invested $6M US to become the largest investor with worldwide rights to the pizza concept, and New York's AlleyCorp is lead investor. Sharma plans a Series A in Q4, and says the founders went unpaid for years to stretch capital.