Wine & Dine with Keenon
A deep dive into how a Chinese robotics company is changing the way we dine at our favorite restaurants
I wouldn’t be the first to admit that, in recent years, China has been quicker in adopting emerging tech to the masses than the rest of the world. Its e-commerce and consumer tech businesses have wowed the international crowd. My previous trip to Shenzhen only reaffirmed my curiosity and fascination for Chinese tech, leaving me in awe once it was time to come home.
I traveled to the manufacturing tech hub of the world last spring, where I got to experience and toy around with gadgets of the future, including drones, VR, AR, and e-scooters. To say that high-tech hardware products have gained traction beyond the drawing board is an understatement. These products have arrived at our doorstep and have permeated in between industries that are bound to face a reckoning. I recall seeing such disruption first-hand while I was going out to eat dinner.
After spending a weekend’s worth of exploring Shenzhen and regretting not buying anything to bring home, my friends and I decided to conclude our trip at Haidilao, a now-international restaurant chain that specializes in Chinese hot pot. The wait for our table took a mere hour or two but was definitely worth it, partly because of the food. I say partly because the food was good, but the service was better. The service was so impeccable that I wanted to tip them at the end. The only problem was there was no one to tip: our food was delivered to our table entirely by robots.
Keen On Keenon
These guys/girls/things aren’t your normal waiters.
Back in 2018, Haidilao teamed up with Keenon Robotics to roll out the first wave of waiter robots in an attempt to replace human waiters. They can see, speak, listen, feel, and move (obviously all with limitations). They are essentially your closest thing to Wall-E. Like an android host from HBO’s Westworld, they attract more attention than your average waiter but aren’t built to hold cordial conversations. Nevertheless, they’re purposeful in the fact that they get the job done, which, in this case, is delivering food from the kitchen to the table.
Founded in 2010 by young tech gurus who specialize in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, Keenon Robotics is a Shanghai-based company that focuses on bringing commercial service robot products to the world. Like any other hardware company that hopes to bring automation mainstream, Keenon believes the future includes the co-existence of robots and people. Creating and commercializing service robots IRL (in real life) would increase productivity, which, in return, would generate more economical benefits for businesses in the long term.
This goes without saying, the road to their ground-breaking success was anything, but silky smooth. Prior to conceptualizing the idea of commercial service robots, the company first considered automating industrial applications to find ground. However, upon realizing how massive the market opportunity for building service robots was, Keenon decided to concentrate their efforts on commercial applications and began flushing out a working prototype for the public. It took 3 years to release the first version and 2 years to tweak it until it was finally ready to launch. In 2017, the first wave of robots was deployed into institutions and commercial areas like restaurants.
Although its lineup of products contains different use cases and is custom made to handle certain functions, Keenon prides itself on the success of its most favored service robot: Peanut. A fully autonomous robot built on multi-sensor fusion technology, Peanut is designed to serve your indoor distribution and delivery needs. By integrating multiple sensors like LiDAR, machine vision, sonar, and infrared, Peanut can read its complex surroundings and execute nerve-wrecking service work like carrying large dishes in restaurants. It’s already hard enough to watch human waiters juggle several plates at once without dropping them, so what exactly makes these robots any better at doing these labor-intensive tasks?
Keenon labels its precision and navigation capabilities as key differentiators in the market. As one could imagine, creating a navigation system that has a low failure rate is a daunting obstacle to overcome. I mean, the last thing you want is a robot crashing into your table with hot plates. To address such a mind-numbing 21st-century problem, Keenon allows for its robots to collaborate with each other while working within the same complex environment. In other words, two Peanuts in the same restaurant can speak with each other from afar without actually speaking. In return, their cooperation elevates the efficiency of their work routes, improves the level of service, and gives customers a subject to talk about at the dinner table.
All Peanuts run automatically. With a battery life of 8 hours and a full charging time of 4 hours, the user has full range and control over setting its working shifts. Soon, don’t be shocked to see a robot serving your craving needs after a late night out. With the full integration of robots, restaurants in China could potentially run 24/7.
The cost savings of expediting automation can be monumental. In the case for restaurants, any type of work that can be spared by an employee and burdened onto a robot provides a one-year payback period. After this period, the restaurants will essentially have a free robot employee for up to 5 to 6 years. That’s a pretty fair bargain if you consider the copious amounts of time and money invested into students-turn-waiters.
Let’s zoom out. Last year, Keenon delivered more than 3,000 robots for food delivery and shopping guides across the globe. After recently closing a $28.8 million Series B round in March, it aims to ship 10,000 more robots to restaurants in 2020. The company is taking their next page out of the movie scripts and focusing on managing navigation data and furthering the interactive experience for consumers. Although the benefits of commercial service robots are easily identifiable within the F&B sector, plans to share the wealth amongst other sectors and geographies are in the works.
One of the many sectors that has already seen (and will continue to see) a robotics boon is in healthcare. Earlier in the crisis, some of the company’s key distributors sold its restaurant-designed models to hospitals all over Europe, including those in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, to help protect hospital workers against the coronavirus. Considering the pandemic, Keenon is creating newly designed service robots geared towards the public health sector. It recently showcased a $40,000 customizable hospital robot that sports different UV germ-killing lamps on its body and liquid disinfectant sprays to kill the virus pathogens. Its requests are mainly for delivering meals, medicines, and paper documents to patients.
Within the bustling industry of robotics, Keenon is one of the few companies leading the herd in innovation and scalability in China; now, its focus is on the rest of the world. The coronavirus has flown the lab doors wide open and has forced companies to short-circuit their go-to-market strategies in hopes of meeting current demands from hospitals. Keenon might be keying in their backlog of robots to help virus-stricken countries, but, at the end of the roadmap, it’s keen on becoming your commonplace server/receptionist/guide/advertiser/courier.
Eastworld: The Prelude
The US has already seen several promising feats and strides in the field of robotics prior to the end of the world. Startups like Zipline and Simbe Robotics are trying to use automated robots as a means to an end and augment our jobs through co-existence. Proven to be a terrible catalyst for innovation, Covid-19 has only accelerated the commercialization efforts of these emerging technologies like drone delivery and autonomous mobile robots (AMR).
Within the world of restaurants and hospitality, I have yet to see any commercialized robots serving people food on a platter or playing receptionist at the Four Seasons (although that may change soon). Automated robots haven’t made their way to your favorite shopping centers in full force, partly because many Americans don’t want them replacing their jobs. On the other hand, the Chinese public seem rather receptive towards working with their stoic colleagues. After all, the government is pushing to deliver local breakthroughs in the robotics industry in order to maintain their global competitive edge. With much hype and demand, the domestic robotics market in China is forecasted to hit a casual $104 billion by 2023. Expect robots to go mainstream in the new decade.
For those that have seen Westworld lately, the future of our world could look bleeping frightening if we don’t take matters (and our data) into our own hands. Although it’ll take some time before we actually start seeing lifelike robots that pass as real human beings, the development and deployment of robots IRL has evidently made headways beyond our TV screens. My days of traveling in China and experiencing the richness in eastern culture has allowed me to recognize one key attribute about the economic superpower: don’t underestimate Chinese tech. If there’s one thing China will resort to retain their soft power, it’s their ability to showcase their indisputable technological prowess to the world.
This article is from Issue #4 of my newsletter E-MERGE.
E-MERGE is a casual newsletter for non-casual topics to help you stay informed on emerging trends that intersect technology & culture. Once a week or so, I’ll be writing and sharing content that breaks down interesting products, businesses & perspectives in the startup community around the world.
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