# Revolutionizing the food industry with robotics and AI We believe food is where embodied AI can make the greatest impact. Our world-class team of AI, software, and hardware experts has developed the world’s most intelligent food manipulation model, powering over 70 million food servings across North America to date. ## Our Mission and Master Plan To Empower Humans to Do What Humans Do Best by Accelerating the Advent of Intelligent Machines ## We Are Moving Forward The food service and food production industries are facing the #1 labor shortage in the US according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More and more food companies are considering off-shoring parts of their supply chain due to challenges with hiring and retaining labor on-shore. 106,375,528 Servings in Production 7 Cities Chef’s Robots are Deployed Across North America 300 % Year-over-Year Growth ## Where We Come From ## Backed by the Best ## Our Leadership Team Chef’s team of senior leaders has scaled an array of software and hardware products. #### Rajat Bhageria CEO Rajat is the Founder and CEO of Chef Robotics. Prior to Chef, Rajat was Founder and Managing Partner at Prototype Capital, a pre-seed venture capital fund investing in founders who apply new technology to old industries. Before that, Rajat was the Founder and CEO of ThirdEye, where he led a team to build a product that empowers the visually impaired by recognizing what’s in front of them; ThirdEye was ultimately sold. Rajat has written a book about education reform, published a scientific paper in electrical engineering, and written for Forbes about entrepreneurship. He has a Master’s degree in Robotics and Machine Learning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor’s in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. #### Ray Martino COO Prior to Chef, Ray served as the COO and Co-Founder of Specific Diagnostics from 2013 until its acquisition by bioMerieux Inc. in 2022 for $425M. During his tenure, he led development, manufacturing, and operations, with responsibilities extending to marketing, customer engagements, fundraising, finance, and business development at different stages of the company's growth. Prior to Specific, Ray was at Symbol Technologies, acquired by Motorola Solutions, and finally acquired by Zebra Technologies (NASDAQ: ZBRA); here, he served in increasing positions from engineer to VP of Engineering to General Manager to SVP Marketing and finally CTO over 14 years. #### Somudro Gupta Head of AI Prior to Chef, Somudro was Head of Autonomous Vehicle Engineering at Embark Trucks, a publicly traded company that was acquired by Applied Intuition in 2022. Over his five year tenure, Somudro joined as the first software engineer where he built much of Embark’s autonomy stack; he was then promoted to lead the Motion Planning and Controls team; he then was further promoted to lead the entire autonomy division at Embark, representing 45 software engineers. #### John Unkovic Head of Hardware John is a technical leader, with a hardware engineering background, who has designed and built a variety of physical products. Particularly in the computer vision and automation space. John has experience setting up global supply chains (particularly in Asia), working with contract manufacturers and building internal manufacturing infrastructure and teams. #### Kartheek Chandu Head of Software Kartheek is Chef's Head of Software. Before joining Chef, Kartheek led sensor signal processing at Cruise, where he directed the development of advanced imaging systems for autonomous vehicles and optimized crucial data pipelines for machine learning models. At Light Labs, he built and enhanced top-tier engineering capabilities, successfully launching the innovative multi-aperture camera system (L16) and pioneering the 5-camera smartphone system (Nokia 9). Lyz Lewis Head of Finance Lyz joined Chef in 2025 to lead the Finance function with 7+ years experience specifically in robotics, automation, AI, and high-growth technology companies. As Corporate Controller at Bright Machines, she led the company’s go-public preparedness, overseeing its first PCAOB audit and successful S-4 filing. #### Justine Ramos Head of People Justine is a seasoned people and recruiting operations leader with a proven track record of building and scaling high-performing teams at early-stage and growth-stage robotics and AI companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. ## Awards [The Information](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/introducing-informations-50-promising-startups-2025) 50 Most Promising Startups of 2025 The Information selected 50 companies that have the potential to be the most valuable businesses in their categories based on their revenue, business model and growth prospects. Chef Robotics was named among the 5 most promising robotics startups of 2025. [RBR50](https://www.therobotreport.com/rbr50-2025/) Recognizing companies furthering the impact robotics can have on the world The Robot Report 50 Most Innovative Robotics Companies For 14 years, the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have honored the most innovative robotics companies, technologies, and applications from around the world. [American Dynamism 50: AI Edition](https://a16z.com/american-dynamism-50-ai/) AI companies advancing the national interest Announcing the a16z American Dynamism 50: AI Awards recognizing the top performers and game-changers in AI across various sectors.