Agot AI, a startup that equips restaurant kitchens with its suite of camera and computer vision software systems to help improve various efficiencies and to help identify potential mistakes in food orders, announced it added an additional $2 million to its seed round. It now brings the Pittsburgh-based company's total raised capital to more than $17 million to date since its founding in 2019 by Evan DeSantola and Alex Litzenberger.
Continental Grain Co.'s venture arm — Conti Ventures, the Kitchen Fund, Grit Ventures and Yum! Brands are listed as the startup's main investors in the round, which have now put a combined $12 million into the company alone. Agot said a partnership with Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, among others, will see the restaurant company expand Agot's technology into around 100 restaurants nationwide pending the success of Agot's pilot program with Yum!, which is currently taking place across 20 locations.
Agot AI, named a Pittsburgh Inno Startup to Watch in 2022, said it plans to use the additional funding to continue growing out its team and to expand its pilot programs at some of the largest QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) companies in the world. It's also looking to add features to its product offering, including ones that are designed to improve customer and employee experiences across all areas of a restaurant.
"Our initial product focused primarily on order accuracy for to-go orders," DeSantola, Agot's CEO, said in a release. "But as we worked closely with our pilot brands, we found that there were many ways to improve customer and employee experiences for in-house dining, drive-thru and real-time back of house analytics."
DeSantola and Litzenberger founded the company while attending Carnegie Mellon University two years ago. They wanted to find a way to streamline and reduce mistakes in the QSR industry after experiencing a few too many of their own as customers themselves.
The startup’s technology uses cameras that can be converted into sensors capable of collecting data to monitor and track the various stages of food preparedness. Its Kitchen Awareness and Interventional Order Accuracy technologies track an order throughout its journey — from being placed online or in a drive-thru all the way to the customer’s pickup — all while constantly monitoring items as they’re prepared, which gives it the capability to alert line workers of any needed corrections.
Agot employs nearly 40 workers and maintains its headquarters out of Wilkinsburg.
