SoftBank May Invest up to $750 Million in Robotic Pizza Startup Zume

SoftBank Group Corp. is considering a $500 million to $750 million investment in Zume, a robotic pizza startup based in Silicon Valley. The startup makes and delivers fresh pizzas with the help of robots.

The trucks of Zume’s are loaded in part by robots and have ovens that fire up on demand, via a remote cloud signal. Alex Garden, the co-founder of Zume, said, “If you cook your pizza while it is being delivered, you only get the freshest pizza possible. You also save a bunch of time that way”.

The combination of robots and pizzas is not new. Pizza Hut and Domino Pizza have been experimenting with robots too. While Pizza Hut used Pepper, the humanoid robot from SoftBank Robotics Corp., to take orders at a certain location, Dominos has developed an autonomous delivery bot.

The investment shows SoftBank’s Vision Fund's broader ambitions to attach itself to the food-delivery businesses. Earlier, SoftBank led a $535 million funding round into meal-delivery app DoorDash. SoftBank also owns a 15% stake in Uber.