Seattle-based Artly is betting on a tech solution for the tight labor market: robots.
The barista robot company uses mechanical arms to make speciality drinks at locations in multiple West Coast cities. Artly co-founder and CEO Meng Wang said the company isn't using these stores to simply showcase its technology and angle for licensing deals with big coffee chains. Instead, Artly aims to grow its own coffee brand with the help of its robots.
"To really control the quality end-to-end, we have to control everything from the very beginning," Wang said. "From sourcing the beans and roasting those beans, there's other things that can be done there, also. Currently our thought is to open up more locations, and they're not just showcases."
Artly was founded in 2020. The company's robots are designed to learn different coffee drinks from human baristas. The robots, which can detect anomalies and avoid obstacles, use computer vision and deep learning to make drinks. Artly's menu includes basics such as espressos and cappuccinos as well as specialty items such as iced mochas, and honey rose and matcha lattes.
Artly raised $8 million in September. The company has a Seattle location at 101 Stewart St., near Pike Place Market, as well as three locations in the Bay Area and one in Portland.
Wang previously co-founded a cloud-based company called Orbeus that was acquired by Amazon in 2015, after which Wang stayed on with the retail and cloud giant for about five years. After experiencing good coffee in Seattle and hearing from friends how hard it was to hire baristas, he figured artificial intelligence and robots could help with the problem. Wang and some friends began working on a prototype a few years ago.
Now, Wang said the company has 15 engineers, who are based in Seattle, and between 20 and 30 store employees, as each store has at least one person inside and sometimes two. Wang said the company plans to grow its headcount between 50% and 100% in the next year.
The company is headquartered in the Northwest Work Lofts in Interbay. Wang said Artly is moving from a roughly 2,000-square-foot space to an almost 8,000-square-foot space in the same building.
Wang said Portland was Artly's first location because the city is passionate about coffee.
"Portland is the capital of speciality coffee," he said. "People there like speciality coffee and have a very high standard of coffee."
