Zume, Inc. was an American manufacturing-technology company headquartered in

Camarillo, California Camarillo ( ) is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 70,741, an increase of 5,540 from the 65,201 counted in the 2010 Census. Camarillo is named for brothers Juan and ...

. Founded in 2015 as an automated pizza parlor, in 2020 the company shifted to

food packaging Food packaging is a packaging system specifically designed for food and represents one of the most important aspects among the processes involved in the food industry, as it provides protection from chemical, biological and physical alterations ...

and delivery logistics. In June 2023, the company was shut down.

History

Zume was founded in 2015 as Zume Pizza by Chairman and CEO Alex Garden and Julia Collins. In 2016, it raised $6 million in Series A investment funding from

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (; born Yang Chih-Yuan; November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-born American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. and founding partne ...

and SignalFire, a

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firm. Zume's initial business proposition was the automated production and delivery of

pizza Pizza is an Italian cuisine, Italian, specifically Neapolitan cuisine, Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of Leavening agent, leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high t ...

, which would largely be made by robots and cooked en route to customers. In September 2016, it delivered its first pizzas. They were cooked in a van equipped with 56

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

-equipped automated ovens, timed to be ready shortly before arrival at the address, and then sliced by a self-cleaning robot cutter. The pizza preparation process was partly automated by November 2016. The company secured a patent on cooking during delivery, which included algorithms to predict customer choices, and planned to partner with businesses to provide other robot-prepared meal components, such as salads and desserts. In fall 2017, Zume raised $48 million in Series B funding. Baking pizzas in a moving vehicle proved to be impractical, and customers complained about quality problems with the robot-made pizzas; the idea was eventually shelved.

Zume, Inc.

By 2018, the company announced that it would move away from pizza and make use of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and kitchen technology to become a platform for automated food trucks and would form a larger umbrella company, Zume, Inc. In April 2018, the company announced that it would begin to license its automation technology. It subsequently also began selling food packaging; it holds patents for sustainable food-delivery boxes. It projected revenues of $250 million and $1 billion in the final quarters of 2020 and 2021, respectively. In November 2018, the company raised $375 million from

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

, giving it a valuation of $2.25 billion. It subsequently focused on automated production and packaging for other food companies, and in 2019 it bought Pivot, a company which made plant-based packaging. The company sought a valuation of $4 billion in 2019 and generated significant public attention. Its packaging could not legally hold food in some jurisdictions, including San Francisco, because it contained

PFAS Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS, PFASs, and informally referred to as "forever chemicals") are a group of synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain; there are 7 millio ...

, which are chemicals considered harmful to humans by the EPA. In 2020, the founders of Pivot, which Zume acquired, claimed the company was incorrectly valued at the time they were purchased for $20.5 million, which purportedly included $10 million in stock. By May 2020, the company started manufacturing compostable

. In 2020 it laid off more than 500 employees including its entire robotics and delivery truck departments. In June 2023, the company was shut down.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 37.398925, -122.083925, display=title Restaurants established in 2016 2016 establishments in California Companies based in Ventura County, California Softbank portfolio companies