Sweetgreen has completed the sale of its Spyce robotics division to Wonder.
The digital food hall/delivery company paid the salad chain $100 million in cash and $86.4 million in stock for Spyce, which makes the conveyor-belt robots that help produce salads in some Sweetgreen locations.
The deal was announced in November.
Also departing Sweetgreen for Wonder are Spyce co-founders Michael Farid, Kale Rogers, Brady Knight and Luke Schlueter, who started the company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2015.
Sweetgreen acquired Spyce in 2021 for about $70 million and now has its “Infinite Kitchen” robots in more than 20 of its 270 locations.
In a press release Friday, Sweetgreen called the sale “a strategic milestone” and said it would allow the company to reinvest in growth and operational efficiency. It plans to continue putting Spyce robots in its restaurants going forward through a long-term agreement with Wonder.
“This transaction reflects the strength of the Infinite Kitchen and the incredible work of the team behind it,” said Jonathan Neman, Sweetgreen’s co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “It allows us to stay focused on our long-term growth while continuing to benefit from a technology that has become a key part of our restaurant operations.”
Sweetgreen is coming off a challenging year in which traffic declined sharply and losses widened. It’s focusing on its value proposition and operations to right the ship.
As for Wonder, the company plans to use Spyce robots in its own locations, where it produces food from dozens of different restaurant concepts. The Spyce team will also develop new robots as Wonder looks to automate much of its back-of-house.
The deal capped a busy year for Wonder, which also acquired Grubhub and Tastemade and opened more than 80 new locations.
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