Faster Fast Food

MIT engineering students Kale Rogers, Michael Farid, Braden Knight, and Luke Schlueter wanted healthier options to traditional fast food. So they invented one: a fully automated mini-restaurant complete with refrigerator,dishwasher, stove top, and a robot chef that cooks and serves meals with fresh ingredients in under five minutes. The group won a $10,000 Lemelson “Eat It!” prize for the nation’s top two undergrad food technology inventors. But to turn their invention into a real money maker, they needed investors. That’s when they turned to Goodwin.

A team of Goodwin attorneys advised Spyce on its initial financing round, attracting a host of investors led by Khosla Ventures with participation from several others including S2G Ventures, Maveron, Bolt Fund and Ravi Thakran. Goodwin’s Technology Companies Practice guided Spyce through the sale of $2.57 million of Series Seed Preferred Stock, with $2 million in cash and $570,000 in cancellation of debt on certain outstanding notes held by existing investors.

Flush with an infusion of fresh financing, the Spyce kitchen has received coverage in numerous publications including Tech Insider, Digital Trends, Uproxx and Eater. The Spyce team will next test out the mini-restaurant in locations across Boston once it receives NSF and UL approval. “Our vision is to transform the meaning of fast food,”the team said.