Chefee Shark Tank Update – Shark Tank Season 15
Assaf Pashut hopes to transform the cooking experience with Chefee, would the Sharks find it interesting?
Assaf Pashut hoped to cook up a deal for Chefee, his robotic kitchen, in the Shark Tank Season 15 Episode 17. Pashut first envisioned a robotic kitchen that would prepare his grandmother’s recipes for him in the fall of 2020. It was the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he had just closed his 5 Flying Falafel restaurants.
Pashut became famous for flinging falafel into his customers’ mouths. He kept his mobile food truck open, but it was in a wreck, so he embarked on the journey of creating Chefee.
Now, he had a fully functional, patented machine that fit into virtually any modern kitchen. It would even order the groceries for you. The product wasn’t for sale yet, as the company was in a pre-seed funding stage, but their release was imminent. They’d raised at least $500,000 to date.
The robot kitchen promised to cut costs for restaurants and reduce food waste. It would also save home cooks a lot of time. Given that the company was pre-seed, Pashut likely wanted the Sharks’ cash to get the product into production.
Check Other Shark Tank Season 15 Episodes
About Chefee
| Category | Details |
| Founder | Assaf Pashut |
| Product Type | Automated Kitchen System |
| Funding (Pre-Shark Tank) | $500,000 |
| Investment Asked | $500,000 |
| Equity Offered | 4% |
What Happened on the Shark Tank Episode?
Assaf entered the Shark Tank seeking $500,000 for 4% equity in his company. We all know how hard it can be to cook healthy, fresh meals while juggling our busy lives. Millions of parents around the world care about nutrition, but they hate cooking. They either don’t know how to do it, don’t have time to do it, or they just plain suck at it.
What if all that could change? What if cooking were so easy that you could literally walk into your home and talk to your kitchen? Sounds like science fiction? Not anymore. Forget self-driving cars and start thinking about self-cooking kitchens.
Introducing Chefee, the world’s first embedded robotic chef. It does meal planning, cooking, and even orders groceries. Once a week, you restock ingredients. Then open the Chefee app, place an order, and Chefee does the rest. It weighs, combines, dispenses, and cooks the meal.
He asked the Sharks, “Who’s ready to bring personal, private chefs to everyone with Chefee?”
How Chefee Works: A Live Demo for the Sharks
In front of the Sharks were 3 dishes Chefee had prepared: Spanish paella, spicy ratatouille, and tofu tikka masala. The Sharks liked the food. Assaf explained that users can customize recipes in the app. The Sharks wanted to see it work, so Assaf ordered a meal with the app. Chefee sprang to life, rising from out of the counter. First, it took the lid off the cooker.
Chefee consists of 2 parts: upper and lower. The upper part, which fits into a standard kitchen cabinet, stores and dispenses ingredients. As he explained this, Chefee dispensed and weighed the ingredients.
The left side of the upper portion is refrigerated. To supply Chefee, users need to integrate with Amazon Fresh. Once Chefee finishes dispensing ingredients, it pours them into the cooker. They aren’t reinventing the wheel; they’re applying robotics to cookers. Chefee can be installed in any modern kitchen in the world.
Chefee’s Business Model and Revenue Plan
Chefee’s base model is priced at $9,500. The advanced version costs approximately $30,ooo. Then, there is a premium version, which costs approximately $50,000. The premium version allows for more ingredients, so you can make a lot more recipes. Assaf told the Sharks the company was pre-revenue.
They are using social media and organic marketing, and they’ve shown it to builders, designers, and high-end kitchen appliance companies. They are considering licensing the technology to appliance companies like Sub-Zero, whose CEO loved Chefees.
They’ve installed three Chefee units in total: one in their headquarters, one in an investor’s home, and the mobile unit presented in the Tank. He wanted to raise $500,000 to get to manufacturing. He didn’t want to overpromise and underdeliver.
To date, he had raised $450,000, and he had put $90,000 of his own money in. A Chefee costs $1500 for materials and $1000 in labor.
Read more about Chefee Robotics at the Shark Tank Blogs.
What Makes Chefee Unique?
Chefee is a fully automated kitchen system. These are its features:
- Cooks by Itself: This machine can automatically stir, fry, and cook your food for you.
- Controlled by Your Phone: There’s an app on your phone that lets you pick what to cook, change how you want your food, and set times for it to start cooking.
- Large Recipe Library: It comes with over 5,000 recipes, and you can even add your own recipes to it.
- Filters for Your Needs: You can tell it what kind of diet you follow, if you have allergies, or how much time you have, and it will show you recipes that work for you.
- Two Sections: It has a top part where you put all your food, and a bottom part that does the cooking.
- Orders Groceries for You: It keeps track of the food you have and can automatically order more.
Did Chefee Get a Deal on Shark Tank?
Mark said it wasn’t a robotics company, it was an integration company. Assaf said they were a robotics company. They had patents pending for the entire system, the custom parts, and the embedded form factor. He spent 8000 hours on this.
Assaf learned mechanical engineering and 3D printing. He slept under the 3D printers in the office for weeks to get this done. They may not have been producing the motors, but they were integrating the robotics systems.
Mark shouted, “That’s an integrator!” He said there was nothing wrong with that, but he had to say what it was.
Mark said investors should have been throwing money at him. Kevin wanted to know who would maintain it if it stopped working. Assaf responded that anyone could maintain it with their instructional videos; they just needed plumbing experience.
This is how the deal came together:
- Barbara didn’t trust the execution.
- Robert thought the design was elegant, but he didn’t see the market.
- Lori didn’t know how this would be adopted in the future.
- Kevin wasn’t worried about the price. He knew there was a high-end market for tricking out kitchens. Kevin was choking on the valuation because he knew he’d get diluted. Kevin offered $500,000 for 15% equity.
- Mark thought it looked great, but he didn’t think Assaf had described the technology well enough.
- Assaf countered with 8%. Kevin thought licensing was the way to go.
- Assaf countered with 12%, and Mr. Wonderful held firm. Assaf accepted the deal.
What Happened to Chefee After Shark Tank?
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provides updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Shark Tank TV show.
As of June, 2024, when the first re-run of this episode aired, there is no hard evidence the deal with Kevin has closed. This is only 3 months after the original air date. Kevin is prominently referenced on the Chefee website however. In June, 2024, the company is accepting “reservations” for December, 2024 delivery. “Early bird” orders get $1000 in free groceries and $1000 off the price. There is a refundable $250 reservation fee. The fully refrigerated, premium version will cost more than $50,000.
The Shark Tank Blog will follow-up on Chefee & Assaf Pashut as more details become available.
Where Can You Buy It?
Contact the company to get yourself an automated kitchen! You can find them on their official website. Follow their Facebook and Instagram for more updates.
Quick Summary
- Assaf Pashut came to Shark Tank to pitch his business Chefee.
- Chefee is an automated kitchen system that smartly takes up your kitchen responsibilities.
- The entrepreneur secured a deal with Shark Kevin.
