Wonder Acquires Spyce From Sweetgreen in $186M Deal

• Sweetgreen sold its Spyce business to Wonder for $186.4 million in cash and equity.
• The deal allows Sweetgreen to continue deploying Spyce’s Infinite Kitchen technology in its restaurants.

Sweetgreen announced it has finalized a deal to sell its Spyce business to mealtime platform Wonder for $186.4 million in cash and equity. As part of the transaction, Sweetgreen will maintain the right to use Spyce’s Infinite Kitchen technology under a new supply and license agreement. According to the company, this will allow Sweetgreen to focus on growth and profitability while continuing to scale automated operations.

Spyce, originally founded by MIT mechanical engineering graduates, developed a robotic kitchen that could cook meals in three minutes or less. The company raised $21 million in Series A funding and operated two restaurants in the Greater Boston area before its acquisition by Sweetgreen in 2021. Sweetgreen acquired Spyce for approximately $70 million and deployed the Infinite Kitchen technology in over 20 locations around the U.S.

Under Wonder’s ownership, the Spyce team, including 38 engineers and support staff and its four co-founders, will support Wonder’s transition from a multi-restaurant operator to a tech-driven food platform.

“At Wonder, everything begins and ends with the customer,” said Marc Lore, Founder and CEO of Wonder, in a press release. “As we evolve from a first-of-its-kind, multi-restaurant operator into a truly scalable, technology-powered food platform, the acquisition of Spyce’s Infinite Kitchen gives us leading robotics capabilities that will transform how food is prepared and served. This technology enables us to eventually operate more than 100 restaurants across any cuisine type and price point, all out of a small kitchen, while serving food faster, hotter and with flawless accuracy and consistency. It furthers our mission to make great food more accessible, bringing more restaurants to more people, in more places, at more times of day and at more affordable prices.”

🌀 Tom’s Take:

With both Sweetgreen and Wonder now using the Infinite Kitchen, two major restaurant operators are committing to robotics, which signals broader adoption of automation in kitchen operations.

Source: Business Wire / Sweetgreen , Wikipedia