VD Company Makes Seed Investment in Food Tech Startup SPBT

VD Company, the No.1 serving robot company in Korea, announced on the 5th that it has completed seed investment in the food tech startup SPBT. VD Company plans to support successful franchising through the digitalization of dining brands discovered by SPBT.

SPBT is an F&B Brand Aggregator that discovers promising local small business dining brands and supports their franchising commercialization. Since its establishment in September last year, it has nurtured over 10 brands within a year. By discovering and incubating restaurants and brands verified with quality recipes from young restaurant entrepreneurs and integrating them with franchise systems, it rapidly franchises them and fosters capable franchise headquarters. The success experience of co-CEOs Park Byung-jin and Yang Hyung-seok, who grew 'Baekchae Kimchi Stew' from the first store to the 250th store without large-scale promotional activities but through franchise systems and brand power, stands out. This business model secures multiple promising brands to create synergy, reduce operating costs, and increase sales.

Since its founding in February 2019, VD Company has maintained its position as the No.1 domestic serving robot supplier for four years. In November last year, it attracted an investment of 9.9 billion KRW from Hana Ventures. Last year, it launched the AI restaurant solution ‘Serving Robot 2.0’ combining serving robots and various devices, along with the integrated restaurant management solutions VD Menu and VD POS, under the VD Solution brand, striving for digital transformation in the dining industry.

Through this investment, VD Company plans to equip SPBT’s brands with dining digital transformation services and enhance the completeness of the dining brand incubating system to expand its market share in the startup sector. Brands currently nurtured by SPBT, such as ‘Hwaduk-euro Gan Godeungeo (Hwagan-go)’ and ‘Amazing Brewery,’ are already using VD Company’s serving robots and order/payment solutions. The company will continue to expand brands and automate processes from customer ordering to payment, serving, reservation, waiting, point accumulation, and takeout orders through serving robots, table orders, cloud POS, kiosks, and waiting solutions.

The seed investment round included VD Company and The Invention Lab, an early-stage startup investment institution and TIPS operator. The invested funds will be used for additional investment and nurturing of dining brands developed by SPBT. They also plan to establish a factory capable of small-scale manufacturing and delivery of exclusive products, which is the biggest challenge for small business owners entering the franchise market. Both companies aim to solve the labor shortage, currently the biggest issue in the dining industry. By supplying VD Company’s dining automation solutions to small business stores discovered by SPBT, they plan to reduce employees’ workload, improve the quality of face-to-face service, and maximize the efficiency of store operation systems.

Ham Pan-sik, CEO of VD Company, said, “With high inflation, minimum wage increases, and labor shortages overlapping, serving robots and dining automation solutions are becoming indispensable solutions in Korea’s dining industry. Through this investment and collaboration, we hope promising small business owners succeed in franchising with VD Company’s serving robots and integrated dining solutions.”

Park Byung-jin, CEO of SPBT, said, “We are very excited to work with VD Company, which provides digital transformation services for the dining industry. We will continue to discover good small business owners, grow them into global K-Food brands, and build an ecosystem where dining brands can raise funds and grow like venture companies.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.