Shenzhen-based AI kitchen robotics company completes B+ and B++ tranches; deployment now spans 29 countries
Shenzhen, 13 April 2026 — BOTINKIT, a developer of AI-integrated commercial kitchen automation systems, has closed two consecutive funding tranches — Series B+ and B++ — totalling approximately $50 million USD. The rounds were co-led by an undisclosed global long-duration capital fund and an unnamed strategic industrial investor, with existing shareholders participating on an oversubscribed basis.
The raise brings BOTINKIT's cumulative disclosed funding to approximately $70 million, following a $21 million Series A+ led by CCV Capital in October 2024 and a $13 million Series A led by Forebright Capital in mid-2023.
Technology Stack
BOTINKIT's core hardware is the OMNI cooking robot, which automates stir-frying, stewing, temperature regulation, and seasoning via closed-loop AI control. The system integrates with a proprietary Kitchen Manufacturing Execution System (Kitchen MES) for order flow management and operational telemetry.
At the model layer, the company has developed Restaurant-LM, which it describes as a domain-specific large model trained on foodservice operational data. The architecture is designed to enable AI agent-driven kitchen orchestration rather than fixed-program execution, allowing dynamic adaptation to ingredient variability and real-time environmental conditions — a longstanding limitation of prior-generation robotic kitchen hardware.
To address the data scarcity problem common to physical AI applications in unstructured environments, BOTINKIT operates a hybrid active-passive data acquisition pipeline: an intent-sensing and control engine captures human cooking behaviour sequences (active collection), while a dedicated vision module performs passive inference on ingredient state changes throughout the cooking process. This multimodal data flywheel feeds model iteration for both physical manipulation improvement and generative recipe synthesis capabilities.
The commercial deployment model is structured as RaaS (Restaurant-as-a-Service), positioning the solution as a space-efficient, opex-based offering capable of operating within approximately 5 square metres of kitchen footprint.
Commercial Traction
BOTINKIT reports deployments across 29 countries, with contracted customers including Disneyland, Jollibee, Walmart, Rewe, Foodstuffs, and LSG (airline catering). The company has established approximately 100 local distribution and systems integration partnerships globally.
Reported operational metrics include a 30% reduction in kitchen labour costs and a 10% reduction in ingredient and seasoning waste at deployment sites.
Strategic Context
The company was founded in 2021 by CEO Shirley Chen Rui, an alumna of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Early backers include Li Zexiang, HKUST engineering professor and angel investor in DJI.
BOTINKIT competes in a crowded but fragmented foodservice automation market that includes Miso Robotics (US), Moley Robotics (UK), EKIM (France), and domestic Chinese players including Midea, AICAN, and Pudu Robotics. Its differentiation thesis rests on vertical data exclusivity and the depth of its foodservice-specific model training corpus, rather than general-purpose manipulation hardware.
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