Food tech company Circus acquires cooking robot startup Aitme

Cologne/ Berlin — Food tech company Circus has acqui­red Berlin-based cooking robot startup Aitme. Through the acqui­si­tion, Circus secu­res access to cutting-edge tech­no­logy in kitchen robo­tics. With the acqui­si­tion, Circus also expands its team with expe­ri­en­ced experts in robo­tics and inte­gra­tes the sophisti­ca­ted cooking robots into its infra­struc­ture. The robots are expec­ted to operate cost-effec­­tively with mini­mal labor and streng­then the level of auto­ma­tion in Circus’ micro-kitchens.

Former Foodora marke­ting chief Julian Stoß and Foodora CEO Emanuel Pallua have co-foun­­ded Aimte. The robo­tics startup is funded with tens of milli­ons of dollars from big-name inves­tors and has deve­lo­ped a cooking robot to market since its foun­ding in 2019.

About Circus
Circus has crea­ted tech­­no­­logy-driven micro-kitchen hubs that intel­li­gently combine auto­ma­tion and digi­tiza­tion. The recipes for Circus’ wide culinary selec­tion are deve­lo­ped by Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence — allo­wing for a large number of perso­na­li­zed dishes at low produc­tion costs and effi­ci­ent use of resour­ces. Since laun­ching in summer 2022, Circus has alre­ady rolled out its service in Hamburg, Colo­gne, Berlin and Duis­burg and raised a total of €18 million from investors.

Imme­dia­tely prior to the Aitme acqui­si­tion, a YPOG team led by Dr. Johan­nes Janning also advi­sed Circus on a €5.5 million finan­cing round led by venture capi­ta­lists Black­Mars Capi­tal and 2bx.

Consul­tant Circus: YPOG

Dr. Johan­nes Janning (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Cologne
Nina Ahlert (Tran­sac­tions), Senior Asso­ciate, Cologne
Matthias Kres­ser (Tran­sac­tion), Part­ner, Berlin/Hamburg
Dr. Malte Berg­mann (Tax) Part­ner, Hamburg
Lukas Schmitt (Tax), Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Dr. Matthias Schatz (Corpo­rate), Part­ner, Cologne
Jannis Fischer (Corpo­rate), Asso­ciate, Cologne
Dr. Bene­dikt Flöter (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­cia­ted Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Chris­toph Cordes (IP/IT/Data Protec­tion), Asso­ciate, Berlin