The article is from the public number: The Silicon Star (ID: guixingren123) , author: CJ, from the title figure: the movie “I, robot.”
The Softbank Vision Fund ’s $ 100 billion investment includes both Uber and WeWork giants, as well as a hundreds of people-based robotics pizza startup Zume.
Zume used to be a “myth” of turning stone into gold: a pizza restaurant that was established two or three years ago can be a unicorn with a valuation of US $ 2 billion under the advocacy of capital. The goal is to subvert the restaurant industry. To be Amazon and Tesla in the restaurant industry.
However, the fall of WeWork knocked down the first domino, and Zume became another company that suffered a major reshuffle when Softbank invested.
1 Amazon and Tesla in the restaurant industry
A brightly painted tomato red pizza cart drove out of Mountain View’s pizza factory. This is Zume’s most glorious moment: Softbank invested $ 375 million in it at a valuation of $ 2 billion. For a time, it became the future Amazon and Tesla of the restaurant industry in people’s mouth.
But it’s not an ordinary pizzeria. In the promotion of CEO Alex Garden, Zume executives came from Comcast, Starbucks, Lyft, Johnson & Johnson, a strong lineup, and a glorious resume; it is more of a tech-savvy start-up company, “which involves disrupting food with robotics and automation. Industry, integrating machine learning, big data, positioning, logistics management, smart oven and other technologies. “
In adult translation, after receiving a pizza order, Zume will bake the pizza in the truck and deliver it to the user. Most of the pizza production process is completed by a mechanical assembly line with only a small number of staff to assist. Each takeaway car has 6 ovens, and each car can bake 120 pizzas per hour, allowing users to eat freshly baked pizzas.
But Garden also said: “The magic of Zume is that it can predict when people place ordersOrders placed. “
Zume believes that this truck mobile kitchen can not only make pizza, but also yogurt, salad, and can replicate the model to the United States and the world.
Some gimmicky technologies, large amounts of capital, and companies with soaring valuations have changed the vision of the global restaurant industry—the formula for Softbank investment companies.
So, in December last year, it was reported that SoftBank intends to make another investment in Zume, bringing its valuation to $ 4 billion. You know, Pizza Hut with tens of thousands of stores is worth only $ 8.5 billion.
But in the eyes of SoftBank, this investment is completely worthwhile: Zume is the future of Amazon and Tesla, with broad prospects, involving new types of retail, food consumption, supply chain management and other industries that need to be disrupted by technology.
But the biggest problem with this pizza was that anyone who tried it felt unpalatable.
2 Robot Pizza Unicorn
The magic of Silicon Valley is to believe in creation, to respect subversion, and not to laugh at dreams and failures, because many of the craziest ideas become reality here. This is why innovation is not stifled and the charm of fertile soil for science and technology lies.
Once this spirit is applied to blowing up valuations, it becomes a bubble. For example, the pizzeria uses a robot to become a technology unicorn.
Remove all the auras to see Zume, which was originally a Silicon Valley startup.
Zume’s pizza still follows the central kitchen and traditional takeaway. Customers place orders on the computer or mobile phone. After receiving the order, the store starts making pizza and delivers it quickly.
What sets it apart is that it applies automation to pizza production, and divides the production process into pasta making, pouring sauce, putting it in the oven, and handing it over to the robot. As for the slightly complicated process of adding pizza, it still needs to be done manually.
This is really just the simplest automatic pizza line. Boxed foods sold in large supermarkets are basically the products of this factory assembly line. The salt content exceeds the standard and the taste is strong. Zume is just moving the large-scale food industrial production line into the takeaway truck kitchen.
Another selling point of Zume is the use of a van-type mobile kitchen to solve the problem of long delivery times for American takeaways. However, some users found that when placing the oven on the car and baking pizza while delivering meals to the user, it was just a gimmick. In the actual order, the ordinary takeaway car delivers pizza to the user.
Whether such a business model is economical and popular with users will take time to verify.
Not only Zume, Silicon Valley is a place of superstition robots and artificial intelligence, there are other fancy robot shops for people to wonder.
For example, Cafe X, a robot coffee, there is always no shortage of “tourists” who order coffee. The standard gesture is to swipe to order, then take out the phone and start recording video.
Recording and recording found that the robots here are actually only responsible for swinging back and forth to sell adorable, moving the coffee cup to the designated position.
Would you like to extract a concentrated extract and give the coffee a try? Can’t do it.
This kind of automation is far from the robot barista and robot chef that people imagine.
3 The Last Pizza
Maybe only radical SoftBank is willing to pay for such stories. But when SoftBank began to reflect on the aggressiveness among its own losses and external pressureWhen investing in strategy, Zume’s story is unsustainable.
Zume Pizza has previously negotiated with SoftBank for a new round of financing intentions, but this round of financing was not completed until the robot pizza business was announced to shut down. SoftBank was busy saving WeWork’s defeat, saving the confidence of the second Vision Fund to raise funds, and Zume reported that it had laid off 80% of its staff.
It’s not just Zume Pizza. At the end of October last year, Softbank-funded car short-term rental company Fair fired 40% of its employees and its own chief financial officer. Fair used to have a growth rate of up to 5 times. Fair raised $ 1.2 billion after raising $ 500 million from SoftBank and other companies.
SoftBank has also invested more than $ 300 million in Wag, a startup that operates a dog walker. In December last year, Softbank sold its shares at a loss, and Wag laid off 182 people last year.
Even when the WeWork crisis broke out and SoftBank expelled WeWork CEO Neumann, there were investors in Silicon Valley who said that if SoftBank was willing to invest, they would be willing to take the money.
Now they are willing to take money and SoftBank is not willing to invest.
During the shutdown of Zume’s pizza, there have been some accusations against SoftBank, such as “encouraging rule-breaking and unsustainable methods.”
The founder of Zume Pizza also mentioned in an interview that it is difficult to get the attention of investors without a vision to change the world.
Silicon Valley was once most proud of, which is the mature development cycle of enterprises, financing at a pace and growing according to plan.
There is nothing wrong with industry automation, and there is nothing wrong with business innovation. What is wrong is that it deviates from the actual valuation, a high rate of burning money, and uses the imagination of magicism to make a great leap forward to overturn the future of the industry.
Zume is still clarifying, its layoff ratio this timeThe rate did not reach 80%, and only 53% of the employees were fired, for a total of 252 people.
Zume also said that he did not go bankrupt, but transformed to make boxes, replaced plastic with more environmentally friendly sugar cane, and made packaging. “In essence, as we expand, this will help save the world.”
But the robot pizza site that once attracted countless attention still wrote the epitaph for itself.
“After four great years, we served the last piece of pizza. Thanks to everyone who supported us.”