It may sound strange but in the ever-growing world of technology, robots have evolved to keep us well fed. With such technological advancements, it is possible to imagine being able to sit back and relax after a hectic day at work while a robot chef prepares your favourite meal as nutritious and tasty as home-cooked food.
Bengaluru-based startup Euphotic Labs, aka Nosh, is developing AI-enabled robots that can follow commands, cooking instructions, and prepare food, giving you a much-needed respite from your daily hustles.
Founded in March 2018 by Yatin Varachhia, Sudeep Gupta, and Amit Kumar Gupta, Nosh is looking at serving the economically well-to-do migrant population of metropolitan cities to sell its cooking robots to make their life easier, bestowing them with the joy of home-cooked meals.
At a time when robots, equipped with different capabilities, are increasingly gaining popularity among restaurants, food chains, cloud kitchens, and homes, Nosh could emerge as one of the pioneering players in the highly lucrative robot kitchen market, which, as per a report, is expected to reach $4.4 Bn in size by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 12.6% between 2021 and 2028.
The Craving That Gave Birth To Nosh
The idea to build a machine that can cook food at home took shape a few years ago when both Varachhia and his wife were struggling to find time to cook at home due to their hectic work schedule and had no option but to hire help to prepare meals for them.
The couple was surprised to find that several other families, too, were sailing on the same ship and struggling to find time to enjoy cooking and savour the true flavours of food cooked with love and care.
Despite employing the help to cook meals for them, the only thing that was missing was the flavours to satiate their taste buds. This was another pressing issue as the Gujarati couple would often crave authentic Gujarati cuisine, but the flavours largely remained missing from their lives in Bengaluru.
Unable to find a straight solution to satisfy their desire for authentic Gujarati cuisine, Yatin started building Nosh, a machine that can truly automate the entire cooking process, paving the way for Euphotic Labs.
Nosh allows users to load ingredients (veggies, oil, water, etc.) in the machine as per the requirement of a recipe. Once users command it to cook, the device starts cooking as per an individual’s taste and requirement.
It comes with a mobile app through which users can command Nosh’s cooking robot to customise any dish. The device comes with pre-loaded recipes and cooks over 100 of them in cuisines including Italian and Indian.
The device comes with a camera, which helps the AI-powered machine cook perfect meals and healthy treats. The Nosh machines are powered by the startup’s in-house AI and can cook anything that requires a pan or a pot.
Nosh’s Journey To Finding Product-Market Fit
In 2018, Nosh did its first proof of concept but there was a lot of scope for further improvements. Since then, the machine has undergone several tweaks and user trials — both in terms of hardware and AI. Currently, the startup is working on its seventh prototype.
Initially, Nosh built its product for the broader consumer market. However, in 2019, the startup joined hands with cloud kitchens listed on Swiggy and EatFit to automate their operations.
Varachhia explained that with profitability becoming the major focus for these cloud kitchen startups, they adopted the cold chain method rather than cooking fresh food, which ended the use case for Nosh in the cloud kitchen space.
In mid-2020, Nosh reverted to building for the consumer market. “We have received a good response from the consumer market and have been able to pre-book 1,000 orders from across India while there are more than 4,500 people on the waiting list. We have been able to secure these orders with zilch marketing spends,” Varachhia said.
Nosh has charged INR 40,000 per customer for its pre-orders, however, the machines (the cooking robot) are expected to cost INR 50,000 apiece once they are floated in the market. The startup is planning to first start with the delivery of its pre-orders from October this year.
While Nosh has taken the onus on itself to deliver the first lot of pre-orders to its customers, it eventually has plans to sell its cooking robots via various ecommerce platforms like Flipkart and Amazon.
With just $1 Mn in seed funding raised so far, the founders claim to have kept their R&D costs low. Nosh’s cap table includes names like BITS Spark, SuperMorpheus, and a few other angel investors.
Besides, the startup’s working capital is largely driven by pre-orders. Further, the startup’s machines are made at different contract manufacturing facilities.
What’s Next?
In 2024, Nosh aims to make and deploy 5,000 cooking robots but the projections are heavily dependent on the supply chain. The startup is not looking to raise any funding this year due to weak market sentiments.
Meanwhile, Nosh is working on training its AI robots in more Indian recipes and adding a multi-cuisine menu to the already-impressive list of food items that it can make.
In the kitchen robotics market, Nosh competes with Bengaluru-based Nymble and its cooking robot Julia, and another startup Mechanical Chef.
Besides, in the US and European markets, several players, including Samsung, HeroX, NVIDIA, Sony, Miso Robotics, and Moley have launched kitchen robots.
As per a report, North America and Canada are leading the markets for AI-powered kitchens and robotic chefs. Among South Asian countries, India, China, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore are leading the demand for automated chefs and cooking robots.
While there is a huge scope in the global market, it will be interesting to see if Nosh can play its cards right and capture a juicy chunk of this lucrative sector in the years to come.
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