Daily Blends, an Artificial Intelligence tech company offering fresh and healthy food through smart vending machines, has closed a $2 million funding round and inked a deal with the Metrolinx network to roll out its innovative initiative to numerous sites.
“The combination of powerful data insights and plug-and-play smart vending machines, further combined with an omnichannel experience, helps us address new-age, evolving consumer needs while keeping our model agile and removing the heavy capital and labor costs associated with traditional retail formats,” said Shriya Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Daily Blends, based in Toronto. “We’re excited to bring affordable, healthy options to Toronto commuters and we look forward to expanding our reach with our additional funding.”
The company has closed a $2 million funding round led by San Francisco-based Hustle Fund with participation from New York-based 2048 Ventures, and other investors.
Gupta said the financing will accelerate Daily Blends’ plan to deploy its AI-powered smart vending machines at many locations across the Metrolinx network, starting with Union Station. These vending machines will offer high-quality, fresh food to millions of commuters in the Greater Toronto/Hamilton area.
“We are developing AI technology for making vending machines super intelligent,” she said.
“It’s an exciting phase for this company.”
Gupta said the goal is to make high quality, fresh and affordable food accessible to people.
The company was founded by sisters Shriya Gupta and Purva Gupta in 2020.
Currently the company has about 10 or so vending machines spread across busy train and bus stations and universities in Toronto. Gupta said the brand is on track to deploy 80 vending machines by the end of this year. The brand will then move across the country and into the U.S.
Gupta said that in the next few months the vending machines will be available at every possible high traffic location. The mission is to feed people with healthy food through this technology.
“Daily Blends is unique and is reimagining the convenience of healthy food for on-the-go consumers,” said Elizabeth Yin, general partner of Hustle Fund, in a statement. “Their strong back-end technology tied to third-party-vending machines makes them asset-light and highly scalable. We are thrilled to support the company and look forward to their growth and further success.”
“We’re excited to work with Daily Blends to bring high quality, convenient and healthier food options to our customers,“ said Mark Childs, Chief Marketing Officer, Metrolinx, in a statement. “This partnership will help enhance the customer experience, with on-the-go food and beverage choices to help make their journey on GO Transit and UP Express even more enjoyable.”
Daily Blends is powering smart vending machines at the largest university in Canada, University of Toronto, at hospitals and factories and plans to expand aggressively in the U.S. later in 2023.
The company said its software analyzes real-time sales, inventory, and user data from each vending machine, generating multi-level user, location and network insights and powering a highly optimized end-to-end supply chain achieving high product availability and minimal food waste.
Daily Blends added that its in-house technology and algorithms generate insights on accurate demand forecasts, most optimum assortments, share of shelf, promotions, product recommendations, fueling high customer retention, while optimizing delivery schedules and minimizing out of stocks.
“In the last three to four years, there have been drastic shifts in customer behaviour and also retail,” said Gupta. “There is a rise in demand for healthy yet affordable food, available in grab and go formats using mobile ordering and technology, and increased convenience.”
That has combined with a time that costs have risen. The solution is the smart vending machines, said Gupta, because they can be literally placed anywhere, offering customers a customized experience by analyzing the data on consumer preferences.
Typically, a machine has eight to 10 food options for an average price of $6. At some locations, the demand is so high that the machines are restocked each day. And the food is available 24/7.
Hustle Fund is a pre-seed/seed-stage fund based in San Francisco and Singapore founded in 2017 by Elizabeth Yin, Shiyan Koh, and Eric Bahn.
