
SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza to lay off up to 80% of its staff - UrbanPiper
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1Z5257
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SisypheanLife
Yikes! I just interviewed at Zume Seattle less than 3 months ago and they had
over 100 head count open with plans for an office move that doubled the space.
Wasn't the right place for myself at the time and I seemed to have dodged a
bullet. Seems they banked a little to hard on their relationship with SoftBank
and the promise of future funding.

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floatingatoll
HN discussed Zume a few years ago when they launched (106 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980694)

A more recent article that didn't earn discussion includes this interesting
tidbit:

[https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza-
so...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/21/20974979/zume-pizza-softbank-
fundraising-four-billion)

> _The four-year-old company has largely pivoted to an enterprise model where
> it works with restaurants that have no storefront and prepare their food in
> shared centralized kitchens, or “cloud kitchens”; with delivery providers
> like DoorDash and Postmates; and with existing pizza companies to build a
> hub-and-spoke model for the entire delivery industry._

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elliekelly
Reminds me of the YouTube guy who sold microwave meals on Deliveroo:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47u9tduwb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47u9tduwb8)

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achow
Hindsight is 20/20.

On a Pitchdeck it may have appeared disruptive (therefore right up Softbank's
alley), and not very far from Travis Kalanick's Cloud Kitchen.

 _“Pizza was our prototype,” Zume CEO Alex Garden told TC’s Brian Heater back
in April. “There’s no reason why this technology wouldn’t work for any
restaurant or any food category. Any restaurant who wants to adopt our system
can now easily do that. They don’t have to be experts in technology or
appliance manufacturing. They can just be restaurateurs, who have a more
flexible offering for customers.”_

Nov 2018: [https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/01/zume-reportedly-
snags-375-...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/01/zume-reportedly-
snags-375-million-from-softbank-for-its-robotic-food-operations/)

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vxNsr
WOW... $300 mil to deliver pizza.

Also wasn't there a company on SV that PP bought that had a similar idea?

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htfu
IIRC their business model was "buy pizza from Domino's - repackage it - lose
money" which at least explains its failure. As usual the show is much more
sensible than reality.

~~~
LunaSea
Also called the Theranos business model.

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jakozaur
Can at this point SoftBank Vision 1 fund chance to be even a modest success?

A lot of failures at late stage. Most of VCs can afford many failures as they
invest early and one home run can make the fund, though investing late at high
valuation limit the payoff.

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jchallis
Guardant is an unqualified home run.

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musicale
Guess I'd better order one soon.

I find it surprising that a service that delivers better pizza than
Domino's/Papa John's, at a lower price, in less than half the time, to college
campuses would not be popular.

Perhaps the Zume name didn't help or maybe their promotion was poor. Or maybe
they needed a better pizza app. ;-)

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caseyf7
What's the point if they can't deliver a pizza cheaper (or significantly
better) than all of the places with restaurants and hand made pizzas?

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neonate
[http://archive.md/PJ8Qr](http://archive.md/PJ8Qr)

~~~
achow
Interesting. CEOs have started fearing Softbank now?

 _CEO Alex Garden has restricted communication between his leadership team and
SoftBank 's investment team and other outside investors. Some sources
speculated that Garden was trying to retain control of the negotiations due to
concerns that SoftBank might try to make him step aside as part of additional
funding._

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momentmaker
Sliceline from Silicon Valley show :)

