Bear Robotics is an American award-winning engineering and robotics design company headquartered in Redwood City, California with operations across the United States, and Korea.[1][2][3] Founded in 2017, Bear Robotics is best known for its range of bespoke AMRs designed for the foodservice and hospitality industry.[4][5]
The business has received widespread appreciation for the development of Servi, a dynamic, highly mobile robot that improves restaurant operational efficiency and service quality.[6][7] Penny has been commercially accessible since 2017, making it Bear Robotics' first commercially available robot, while the company has expressed its intention to commercialize additional robots as well, and has also launched Servi.[8][9]
Bear Robotics was established in 2017 by a team of tech entrepreneurs and restaurant experts with the aim to revolutionize the hospitality space by leveraging state-of-the-art technology.[10][11] Initially, after raising $750K in an angel investment round, Bear Robotics began its operations out of Redwood City, California.[12][13]
In 2018, Bear Robotics raised $2.8M in a seed investment round to further expand the business. In the same year CEO, John Ha delivered the keynote on “The Future of Restaurants” at the National Restaurant Association Show.[14] A year later the company won the Kitchen Innovations award for Penny.[15][16]
In 2020, Bear Robotics raised $32M in a Series A investment round to support the launch of Servi.[17][18] In the same year, the company collaborated with SoftBank Robotics to facilitate the mass production model - Servi.[19][20]
Since its inception, Bear Robotics has been innovating to launch smarter solutions that automate repetitive tasks and elevate the restaurant experiences all the while improving server workflow.[21][22] It has fostered numerous partnerships with industry giants including Marriott,[23] Morrison Living, Denny’s, Google, SoftBank,[24][25] Sergio’s, and The Ameswell Hotel to name a few.[26][27]
Bear Robotics debuted Penny at the 2018 National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago.[28][29] Penny is a self-driving robot for food service that delivers food, drinks, and empty dishes to-and-from the kitchen.[30][31][32] It is designed to help servers spend more time with customers by doing dirty and physical work for them.[33] Penny can run in various food service environments.[34][35]
An upgraded version of Penny, Servi is a self-driving robot solution for serving, food running, table bussing, and beyond.[36][37][38] Servi has a cylindrical shape and can hold up to three tiers of carrying surface.[39] It comes with two trays and a battery life of up to 12 hours.[40] This robot can be controlled with an external tablet or attached touchscreen.[41][42] This robot was designed to support restaurant staff by expanding stations and increasing service capacity without wasting time dashing between tables.[43][44] Servi comes with an advanced obstacle-avoiding technology and is designed to improve efficiency without the constant back-and-forth of food running and table bussing.[45][46] The idea of Servi is to elevate the overall customer experience for better tips and stellar reviews.[47][48] Servi also comes as a mini version that is optimized for bar running, drink delivery, and bussing.[49][50][51]