Transforming Restaurants: KAIKAKU’s Robots to Augment Human Capabilities

The Gen-AI craze has largely overshadowed the revolutions bringing AI to the physical world: Robotics. A 22-year-old serial entrepreneur is embracing both AI and Robotics to revolutionise the way we consume food and has assembled an A-list team of respected innovators and “do-ers”.

The core philosophy of KAIKAKU centres around augmenting human capabilities by automating the repetitive chores and manual tasks native to the restaurant sector, which has long been riddled by chronic staff shortages and low job satisfaction. Unleashing the potential of robotics and AI, they aim to empower hospitality staff to embrace creativity and innovation, making the industry more dynamic and engaging than ever before.

At its helm is CEO Josef Chen, a serial tech and food entrepreneur who at just 17 years old founded his first successful venture, which achieved a successful exit in just two years. Chen grew up in a Chinese Restaurant family helping with chores such as cutting cabbage at the age of 7: “Having experienced all the problems first-hand and seeing my parents struggle to find staff, I have thought about ways to radically change the industry almost every day.”

KAIKAKU, derived from the Japanese term for “radical change”, was founded in April 2023 by a stellar team with a mixture of F&B and technical expertise. “I endeavoured to assemble the best team in Europe that can build everything at breakneck speed, and I believe we’re off to an amazing start!”, says Chen.

Co-Founder and CTO Dr David Sharp, who has a remarkable track record of delivering breakthrough innovations as former Head of Ocado Technologies 10x and Head of Engineering of Ocado’s Autonomous Mobility Team, joined the mission after researching commercial F&B Technologies: “There is an exciting opportunity to apply the latest automation, robotics and AI technologies to transform the customer proposition and operational economics for the quick service restaurant sector”.

Another notable addition is Piers Millar, who Chen convinced to drop out of his studies at the London School of Economics to join as Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer. Bringing hands-on experience as the UK’s youngest Crew Trainer at McDonald's and having helped Chen scale a dark kitchen dessert brand to 6 figure revenues within 3 months of inception, Millar confidently projects: “By 2030, will robotics be a common sight at restaurants and cafes? No doubt!”.

“To achieve our hyper-ambitious goals, we also needed expertise on scaling the world’s largest locations of F&B chains, creating delicious food consistently at massive scale and the details on creating and opening new F&B concepts from ground 0…”, Chen told us, “so we went out and found the world’s leading experts in the fields to join our advisory board!”. Featuring industry veterans such as Don Fertman, former Chief Development Officer of Subway, David Crean, former Global Chief Science Officer at Mars Inc and Jonathan Hart, former Managing Director of Caffè Nero and CEO of Thorntons.

Automation and robotics aren’t distant dreams for the F&B industry; they’re today’s reality. Leading restaurant chains worldwide are embracing technology to streamline their operations and elevate customer experiences, emphasising the immense potential that KAIKAKU is poised to harness.