What Happened To The Chefee Robotic Chef From Shark Tank Season 15?

Let's face it, many of us simply don't have the time to meticulously look up quality recipes or prep food. But while getting your meal from a drive thru or ordering through Uber Eats and DoorDash is undeniably convenient, there are greater financial and health benefits to eating from home. Former restaurant owner Assaf Pashut proposed a solution to this ever-growing dilemma with Chefee, an automated robot that integrates with your kitchen to cook and prepare meals, on a Season 15 episode of "Shark Tank," the same season as other notable automation-related pitches such as Bot-It.

Appearing on the 17th episode of the aforementioned Season 15, the pitch left the sharks thoroughly impressed by Chefee's capabilities and what seemed like a mostly solid plan from Pashut to get the product out and market it. Kevin O'Leary saw the most potential in the company, particularly when it came to licensing deals, resulting in Pashut taking Mr. Wonderful's deal despite the highly-opinionated Shark raising the equity stake.

Prior to starting Chefee, Pashut ran his own restaurants in San Francisco for several years. He grew increasingly interested with automation as a way of streamlining his process and allowing his employees to focus more on enhancing the customer experience. He and business partner Noam Wolfson spent nine months constructing a robotic arm made to work within his restaurant's kitchen. Seeing the potential for the technology's use in the residential space, they began work on a refined home-friendly option.

Assaf Pashut sought a $500,000 investment for a 4% equity stake in Chefee. He demonstrated to the Sharks how easy it was to use the Chefee, simply requiring the user to restock ingredients once a week, detail their order in the accompanying app, and have the machine take care of cooking. The Sharks were impressed by the Chefee's functionality and the food it produced. 

The company was in the pre-revenue stage and were planning to release a value version for between $9,500 and $10,000 and a premium version with more refrigeration and ingredient options for between $40,000 and $50,000. Pashut shared that the team had a $500,000 signed letter-of-intent (LOI) from a Palm Springs kitchen remodeling company, with further plans to utilize social media, celebrity endorsements, and organic marketing methods to get the word out. He further explained that his intent with the $500,000 would be to aid in manufacturing costs, with the team having already raised $450,000 along with $90,000 put in by Pashut himself. Each unit required $1,500 for material costs and $1,000 for labor.

Many of the Sharks, while fond of the product, were not so confident in its overall market appeal or Pashut's expertise in the technical side. Kevin O'Leary showed the most interest, however, confident that it would find success in the high-end market while hoping to make a licensing deal with kitchen appliance manufacturer Sub-Zero. However, the investor wanted 15% equity instead of 4%. After unsuccessfully trying to talk O'Leary down to 8%, Pashut took the offer.

Chefee's "Shark Tank" segment aired on March 8, 2024. Not long after, founder Assaf Pashut shared plans that were in line with Kevin O'Leary's, aiming to have Chefee start its life for a more exclusive market while further refining its capabilities. 

Speaking with The Spoon in May 2024, Pashut stated. "I mean, at the end of the day, [Kevin O'Leary] saw what we saw, which is there's a high-end market. So we're starting at the high end as a high-end product. Obviously, our goal is to be in millions and millions of homes. But we're going to start like this because we don't want to have thousands of orders right off the bat. We're not going to be able to deliver, and we're going to have recalls, and it's a common mistake that many hardware companies make." Despite this, Pashut added that interest from buyers in Chefee had mounted, likely in no small part thanks to the company's "Shark Tank" appearance.

And customers weren't the only ones expressing interest. Major companies such as Sony and Samsung reached out about potential partnerships, as did numerous other international corporations in countries such as India, Denmark, Australia, England, and Canada to name a few. By late July 2024, the team had raised a combined $750,000 in angel investments.

As of this writing, Chefee is still in operation, but has yet to move past the pre-revenue stage. It is also unclear if Kevin O'Leary is still involved with the company or not, as it's not uncommon for "Shark Tank" investors and entrepreneurs to go their separate ways following a due diligence phase that occurs after filming. 

Those interested can currently make pre-orders on the website, to which all that needs to be paid is a $250 reservation fee. Three options are available with the Chefee Countertop for $39,995, the Chefee Standalone for $49,995, and the Chefee Built-In for $59,995. Buyers can also choose to pay a $599, $699, and $799 monthly plan respectively. Each package comes with a refrigerated storage system and a countertop cooking center, while varying in their overall size, weight capacity, and number of included recipes. The team intends to have units ready to deliver by the first quarter of 2025.

Despite its intimidating appearance, the Chefee doesn't take all that much effort to install. In his interview with The Spoon, Assaf Pashut shared that the Chefee team will install the machine once they deliver it, with the entire process only requiring some minor readjusting. "It doesn't require any permanent damage to your kitchen," Pashut stated. "So the way we do it is we just remove the doors from your upper kitchen cabinet. That's like four screws. And we slide Chefee in. And that's it ... the whole installation takes two hours. And you have now an autonomous kitchen in your house."

While the idea of making an automated kitchen become a viable business may seem far-fetched to some, it really isn't all that odd when looking at recent trends. Not only is advanced technology such as AI and robotics becoming more commonplace in home and working settings, but people are simply finding it harder to make time to cook for themselves. A 2024 survey conducted by Talker Research and Kevin's Natural Foods finding that 80% of Americans don't have the time to cook during the week. As a result, it's easy to see Chefee breaking past the popularity of even the best kitchen smart devices. 

Founder Assaf Pashut envisions such a future for Chefee and then some. While he hopes to eventually have a wider variety of homes adopt the technology, he ultimately sees a reality where Chefee will be as standard a household appliance as the iPhone is a communication device. "But ultimately, it's probably going to be built in, kind of like standard ovens in microwaves and fridges that you have in every kitchen," he said to The Spoon. "You walk into somebody's home in 15 years, and if they don't have a Chefee, it's like they're in the Stone Age. That's how I see it." 

Along with continuing to promote Chefee at events such as CES 2025 and developing new products like the Chefee Airfryer, Pashut has also expressed interest in launching a crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine for further development. Time will tell how things pan out for Chefee and its ambitions, but it's looking like something good is cooking for the company's future.