For the previous 5 or so years, the emails have landed in my inbox on a gentle foundation, almost each month. They’ve included updates on a small startup constructing a countertop cooking robotic named Posha.
The emails, nearly at all times written by the corporate’s CEO and co-founder, Raghav Gupta, element progress, each large and small, starting from software program tweaks and discipline trial insights to information of an $8 million Collection A funding spherical.
The progress has been sluggish however regular. And over the previous yr, the corporate has reached a milestone that the majority cooking robotic startups (particularly these concentrating on the house) haven’t come near: they’re now constructing robots utilizing scaled manufacturing, and people robots are arriving in buyer properties.
Provided that I’ve adopted dozens of corporations trying this purpose over the previous decade, I figured I’d take Raghav up on his invite to see the robotic in motion and discuss with him about what’s subsequent.
So this previous Sunday, I headed to an Airbnb Raghav had rented north of Seattle to demo the Posha robotic for media and buyers. Raghav requested if I wished to cook dinner a meal with Posha, and inside minutes of arriving, the robotic was getting ready spaghetti Alfredo.
The machine stirred, heated, and timed every step with minimal interplay from me. Posha consists of 4 ingredient containers, a number of spatulas, a spice carousel, and an induction cooktop. A digital camera watches over the meals, analyzing “shade, texture, consistency,” and, based on Raghav, offers “human chef-like intelligence.” Customers load chopped substances, choose a recipe, and let the machine do the remainder. “You simply inform Posha you want that, and also you stroll away,” Raghav defined.
Posha, initially named Nymble (each the robotic and the corporate), has modified considerably from its early days as a school undertaking. “We have been two individuals taking out of our mother and father’ storage making an attempt to make a cooking robotic.”
The primary model was a robotic arm, however Raghav stated buyer suggestions led them to pivot. “We had this selection of both repurposing our robotic arm for business kitchen use circumstances or altering our expertise altogether to make one thing that customers wished. We selected the latter route as a result of we have been in love with the issue we have been making an attempt to unravel.”
That drawback: serving to individuals work out what to eat every day. “Individuals such as you and me wish to eat freshly cooked meals and feed our households freshly cooked meals. But it surely’s arduous to seek out the time to cook dinner these meals each single day.” He believes this tradeoff, between consuming properly and having sufficient time, is what led to a nationwide well being disaster. “We’re in the midst of a well being disaster,” he stated. “And I feel with Posha, it would assist America develop into one of many healthiest international locations on the earth, on the identical time being some of the productive international locations on the earth.”
These are lofty objectives, ones I’m fairly skeptical about given the excessive price ticket of the Posha and the almost non-existent adoption of cooking robots to date. However based on Raghav, he sees his product as a pure evolution of a tool that has been fairly profitable, particularly in Europe: the Thermomix.
“I feel we have now a powerful precedent when it comes to Thermomix. They promote like 1,000,000 models each single yr, and what Posha is, is definitely Thermomix++.”
If there’s a mannequin to intention for, the Thermomix is an efficient one, and I’ve to say, the convenience with which I used to be in a position to make spaghetti Alfredo was harking back to the primary time I used a Thermomix. In actual fact, it was basically what Raghav described, the Thermomix++, in that it required me to do even much less as soon as I picked the recipe and hit go. From there, over the subsequent half-hour, the Posha added substances and cooked the meal to completion.
It’s maybe this ease of use and the similarity to Raghav’s professed North Star within the Thermomix that helped the corporate just lately increase over $8 million in Collection A funding. You’d should be dwelling beneath a rock, lined with extra rocks, after which some dust to not understand how arduous it’s for client {hardware} startups to lift cash (not to mention a robotic cooking startup). The truth that Posha secured funding led by Accel is an indication they might be doing one thing others on this house haven’t.
To this point, Posha has shipped 200 models, with 600 extra anticipated by the tip of September. “We’re making an attempt to develop 3X each six months or so,” Raghav stated. The product retails for $1,750, with pre-orders at $1,500.
Should you’d prefer to see Posha in motion, try my cooking video beneath. Raghav can even be talking about his journey on the Good Kitchen Summit this week, so if you wish to hear extra and ask him questions, be certain to seize your ticket..
