Piestro is offering common equity at a $12 million valuation. Although Piestro has yet to generate revenue, it is a fair valuation compared to other food robotics companies. The price is also relatively reasonable when compared to the majority of other startups currently raising capital. 

The robotics industry has been growing rapidly  at a CAGR of 26% since 2018. The global market size of food robotics is estimated to reach $3.1 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 13.1%. However, this is only 1.4% of the total worldwide robotics market. However, COVID-19 has changed food safety awareness and, food robotics could see growth due to the need for no-contact food service. Food manufacturing robots have generally been used for packaging, cutting, and dispensing, and newer advancements are allowing for an automated process where food robots can fulfill an order from start to finish. Companies like Piestro are part of this new era of automated food service.

Piestro focuses on artisanal pizza, which is one of the most popular foods in the US. In 2020, pizza restaurants earned about $46 billion in the United States alone. As mentioned above, COVID-19 has “opened the door to automation and advanced robotics,” so the market could boom in the next few years. There are also no established competitors yet, which gives Piestro a competitive advantage. However, companies like Moley Robotics and Miso Robotics could be big competition in the future if they expand their operations to the pizza-making industry.

Piestro was founded by a team with extensive experience in the hospitality and robotics industry. The founder and CEO, Massimo Noja De Marco, has more than 25 years of experience in hospitality operations. He is the founder of Kitchen United, which has an estimated annual revenue of $22.4 million and a valuation of $140 million. COO Kevin Morris is also the CFO of two companies — one of which is Miso Robotics, which produces an AI-based robot that automates kitchen tasks. Having a team member from Miso Robotics is a huge advantage for Piestro that can predict its success. However, Kevin Morris only seems to be partly involved in Piestro’s operations. 

The team has diverse experience. Most of them are part of early-stage venture capital firm Wavemaker Lab, which provides active support and funding for Piestro. However, the team — including the founder — does not seem to be fully dedicated to Piestro. On average, they dedicate 10-to-15 hours per week and some only three to four hours. 

Piestro is heavily differentiated from a quality standpoint. Aside from its obvious advantages over traditional pizza-making, Piestro is early to market and currently has no established competitors. Although brands like Tremenda and PizzaForno pride themselves on being automatic food makers, humans need to load the machine with pre-made pizza pies, and then the kiosk machine dispenses it to the customers. With Piestro, the actual pizza-making is entirely automated. The company only needs someone to service the machines and restock its ingredients. Although competition could develop in the future, Piestro’s automated pizzeria is an idea that is currently hard to replicate since it requires a lot of capital and time. 

Piestro has not generated any revenue since its founding in 2017. This is mainly because its product is only in the prototype stage. The company’s 2020 financials show that it has been operating at a loss of $252,601 annually. It is not entirely known when the company will start generating revenue, but according to CEO Massimo, the company is planning to launch its first commercial Piestro Pizzeria in 2021. 

Piestro is a risky investment due to several factors. The company has not launched its product yet, so it is hard to gauge what success would look like for the company in the future. The company is built on the assumption that restaurant owners would be willing to spend $50,000 on automatic pizzeria machines and that people’s behaviors for purchasing pizza would shift from the traditional ways. Both of these factors may not prove to be as common as Piestro hopes.  Although the company has raised $1.7 million in prior rounds, it still has not made progress regarding launching its product or generating revenue. In addition to the zero revenue and high debts, the team is not fully dedicated, which could hinder the company’s growth. 

Piestro targets a niche market, the automated pizza industry. Although pizza is one of the most popular foods in the United States, there are no precedents to judge how successful food robotics are since the industry itself is in its early stages. It is true that operating a pizza restaurant can be expensive. For the customers who are going to buy the pizza, though, the experience of sitting in the restaurant and ordering food might be valuable in itself. Currently, the product-market fit for the Piestro Pizzeria is questionable. Additionally, the company will need to scale up its employees in order to grow. With much of the current team being part-time, it’s unclear if Piestro has the right amount of internal guidance or focus for success to be realized.

Piestro has a lot of differentiators that could make it a good investment. First, it aims to deliver high quality artisanal pizza, unlike a typical vending machine that depends on pre-made food. Additionally, Piestro seems to have a good go-to-market strategy. Piestro wants to sell directly to customers while also giving the ability for pizza restaurants to white-label its machines, making it an attractive offer for pizza businesses who want to grow. Second, the company has a team with ample experience in hospitality, robotics, and entrepreneurship. The only downside is that the members do not seem fully dedicated, and the founder splits time with his other company (Kitchen United). Lastly, the need for no-contact food service has risen due to the pandemic, which gives Piestro a huge advantage. The pandemic has shifted the service industry, and digital ways of ordering food have been more prevalent, making it one of the most recent trends. It is difficult to assess the company’s performance without more solid financial performance data, such as revenue. However, similar companies such as Miso Robotics have shown that the demand for food robotics is becoming more popular than ever.

Piestro is a robotic pizza shop that aims to deliver high-quality artisanal pizza. The company intends to offer pizza to customers and to white-label Piestro units for restaurant businesses. Piestro’s competitive advantage includes the fact that it is early to a market with high barriers to entry, its team’s experience, and its disruptive business model that could change the delivery of high-quality food. It is also backed by venture dollars, giving it an advantage in funding and access to active support. 

Piestro’s slow progress since its foundation in 2017 — despite securing $1.7 million in the past — raises some concerns. In addition, the dedication of its team members is in question. The company has not yet launched or tested its machines, and for that reason, the company has not generated any revenue yet and has a high monthly burn. Altogether, Piestro has been rated as a Neutral Deal at this time.

For questions regarding the KingsCrowd staff pick or ratings for this company, please reach out to support@kingscrowd.com. 

Analysis written by Yasmin Sharbaf.