Ella robotic barista
Keith Tan, on an invitation from Plug N Play Japan, was pitching his robotic barista, Ella, at the country’s annual trade show CEATEC.
At the event, he met several top executives of JETRO, a non-profit governmental organisation that promotes trade and investment between Japan and the rest of the world.
And it was a turning point in his entrepreneurial life.
“After my return from Japan, I followed up with JETRO’s Singapore office, whose job is to bring tech companies from around the world into Japan and make introductions to that country’s corporates,” said Tan, a coffee lover who also runs Crown Coffee, a sustainable eco-conscious cafe in Singapore.
“I asked them if they could introduce me to Japan Railways Group. They replied in the affirmative and assured to connect me to JR East Business Development SEA, a subsidiary of East Japan Railway Company. I later came to know that JR East has a joint venture with Singapore’s SMRT,” he added, as he recounted the rendezvous to e27.
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A few days later, JR East executives came to Crown Coffee, where Tan showed them a prototype of Ella. “They immediately saw the relevance and use case for Ella in their train stations. This is when I was introduced to the JR EAST venture team,” he said.
What is Ella?
Ella is a robotic coffee barista powered by Artificial Intelligence and is designed for unmanned and contactless retail operations in high-volume environments.
The barista is powered by an ecosystem comprising patented proprietary Internet of Things (IoT)-connected software and external hardware, which Tan claims, will upgrade the coffee experience with speed, convenience, quality and consistency.
Each kiosk is capable of producing 200 cups of barista-quality coffee per hour and will operate 24×7.
In addition, Ella boasts of immersive and innovative digital touchpoints, such as an interactive transparent OLED screen and mobile app ordering system, with a payment gateway and e-wallet.
The motivation
According to Tan, Ella took birth out of necessity.
Keith Tan, CEO and Founder of Crown Technologies
Crown Coffee was growing, forcing him to open four new outlets in the city-state to meet the increasing demand. However, the shortage of manpower was a problem. Tan realised that digitalisation is the only way out of this “happy” problem.
“We faced four major problems while running Crown Coffee: 1) high real-estate cost, 2) manpower challenge, 3) cost of hiring, training and retaining staff, and 4) maintaining quality and consistency,” he explained.
Ella addresses all these problems, he went on. Ella occupies only 6 sqm of the real estate space and is fully autonomous with no need for workers. Plus, it is easily scalable with its architecture.
The role of AI in Ella
On the backend, the computer vision powered by AI is monitoring the kiosk 24×7 for any abnormalities that may affect Ella’s operations. The algorithms are trained to detect anomalies, and retail video analytics are used to understand customers better.
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“This feeds back into Crown’s backend system and we make decisions to improve user experience, predictive analytics for both upstream and downstream supply,” he explained.
The JR East investment
As part of the partnership, JR East recently made a strategic investment in Ella. This will accelerate the rollout of Ella across East Japan Railway’s network of over 1,700 train stations that serve an average of 17 million passengers daily. The project is slated to be completed before Tokyo Olympics 2020 to meet the increased demands, Tan shared.
“We are not looking to deploy Ella at every train station in the immediate future. We plan to start with Tokyo and aim to reach at least 500 locations by 2022. We are currently in conversations with another Japanese strategic investor who will offer maintenance and replenishment support,” he revealed.
In Singapore, Ella was already used by Marina Bay Sands’ MICE for the last two years at their exhibitions. The robotic barista is currently being deployed at the country’s leading shopping mall, Plaza Singapura.
In addition, Ella also serves clients in the banking, tech and healthcare sectors.
“We also operate Ella in our own locations and high-traffic locations such as train stations, commercial buildings and public attractions in Singapore.
We are also in talks with potential clients in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. The plan is to form a JV with local players for speedy access to market,” he informed.
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Besides Ella, Crown — with a staff strength of 20 — also runs a suite of digital solutions for F&B, such as a kitchen display system, which has been developed in house, and a mobile ordering app.
Are you in the market for the next round of funding?
“I guess we never had luck with VCs until this point. We aren’t willing to be pushed on valuations and we know we could deliver. So we will raise from family offices and corporate ventures who see the value in us. We will then execute our plans and deliver our order books, and once Ella is deployed in more locations and show revenue, I think VCs may come in on the Series B or C round,” he concluded.
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Image Credit: Crown Technologies
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