Sweetgreen sells its robots
…to Wonder!
Sweetgreen once fancied itself a tech company. Now it’s selling off its proprietary automation technology to a $7 billion startup that plans to deploy it at scale.
On Thursday, Sweetgreen announced it’s selling Spyce, the business unit responsible for the ‘Infinite Kitchen’ robotics, to mealtime superapp hopeful Wonder for $186.4 million, a figure that includes $100 million in cash. The deal is expected to close late this year or early next.
During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Jonathan Neman assured investors and analysts that Sweetgreen would still rely on the tech inside many current and future locations.
“We’re really at that point where us fully owning it is not needed as long as we have a level of control and license around the technology,” Neman said. “And we believe over time, it’ll actually bring the unit cost of the technology down so we can put it in more and more restaurants.”
Neman did not disclose further details about the ongoing relationship between Sweetgreen and Wonder, but called the agreement both strategic and favorable with “pretty much the same costs we had so far without the financial burden it was causing.”