kitchen-automation
(3)
Stephen Klein
Stephen Klein is the co-founder and CEO of Hyphen, a San Jose food-robotics company that builds the automated Makeline - a hybrid manual-and-robotic assembly system that runs beneath the counter to build bowls and plates at up to 350 meals per hour. A self-described foodservice fanatic since childhood, Klein started a text-to-order frozen yogurt business in college, helped scale Instacart in its early days, and ran operations at robotic coffee bar Cafe X before launching Hyphen in 2020 with co-founder Daniel Fukuba. Hyphen has since drawn investment from Tiger Global, Chipotle and Cava and deployed systems with chains and foodservice operators across the country.
Hyphen
Hyphen builds the Makeline, an automated meal-assembly system that sits beneath a restaurant's counter and portions and plates digital and takeout orders while staff handle the guest-facing line above it. Paired with its CulinaryOS software for menus, orders, inventory and labor, the San Jose company aims to raise peak-hour throughput and order accuracy without replacing kitchen workers. Founded in 2020 by Stephen Klein and Daniel Fukuba, Hyphen has raised roughly $59M and counts Chipotle and Cava among its strategic investors and pilot customers.
Shin Starr Presents Corp.
Shin Starr Presents Corp. is a Korean-American foodtech company building autonomous, AI-powered robotic kitchens. Its 'Autowok' system - a modular, Lego-block robotics platform - cooks Korean BBQ and seafood with minimal human intervention, including inside moving OLHSO food trucks that finish dishes 'en route' so meals arrive minutes after cooking. Founded in 2019 by Kish Shin and Jay Shin, the company operates OLHSO branded trucks and a San Mateo restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area and is targeting airports, campuses, and corporate cafeterias for expansion.