Pizza robot startup Picnic shuts down

Picnic, a Seattle-based startup that raised over $53 million to build pizza-making robots and partnered with Domino's, has shut down. Legal documents show the company liquidated all assets after going bankrupt, with its intellectual property sold to an undisclosed buyer.

Picnic created the Picnic Pizza Station, a robot that automatically adds pizza toppings, aiming to let one worker make 100 12-inch pizzas per hour. After teaming up with Domino's in 2022, the machine got a lot of attention. Domino's said it wanted to use the robot to enter new markets.

In 2023, Picnic laid off staff, citing the tough economy, and both its CEOs left. Picnic isn't the only pizza robot startup to fail—Zume Pizza, which raised nearly $500 million, also closed in 2023 due to technical issues like cheese sliding off pizzas.