During a difficult time for the restaurant industry, major chains chipotle pepper and hippopotamus is investing in startup Hyphen’s automation Makeline.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company aims to help restaurants achieve two important goals in a highly competitive environment: fast throughput and superior customer service. The technology eliminates disruption and provides a more “elegant experience” for employees and guests alike, co-founder and CEO Steven Klein said in an interview with CNBC.
“We’re probably making a bowl every 10 to 15 seconds. At peak capacity, we usually have more capacity than demand, especially during the lunch and dinner rush,” Klein said.
This efficiency is driving interest across the industry. In August 2025, Hyphen completed a Series B round of funding, including up to $10 million from Cava. Chipotle announced that it has invested a total of $25 million in Hyphen through the third quarter of 2025 through its Cultivate Next venture fund.
The $25 million Series B round will help Hyphen scale production and roll out across restaurants in the United States. Its production will be expanded in collaboration with Re:Build Manufacturing, a company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Chipotle’s hyphen makeup line is in San Jose for fixes after testing within its restaurants. In the future, Cava plans to test and pilot technology for a second makeline to handle digital and takeout orders from the back of the kitchen.
A finished burrito bowl assembled using Chipotle and Hyphen’s automated technology.
Source: Chipotle Mexican Grill
Hyphen’s technology helps solve both speed and labor issues, automating some of the repetitive and hard-to-fill service processes.
“Sometimes someone is upstairs selling the food while the rest of the work is being done downstairs,” he said of the make line. The make line relies on a series of robotic hands to discreetly prepare salads and bowls under long tables and send them down the line.
Klein said it costs between $50,000 and $100,000 to purchase a make line, and restaurant customers often see a return on investment within a year. The company is open 95% of the time, but on the rare occasions when it’s not, employees may jump in to complete orders, much like escalators that turn into stairs.
Another important feature is the reduction of food waste. The technology tracks ingredients “down to the gram,” Klein said.
“We separate all the ingredients perfectly so we can save them money on food, or at least reduce their food costs in some way,” he said.
The idea for the company began when Klein and his co-founder Daniel Fukuba built a fully robotic food truck and launched it in Los Angeles three months before the pandemic began. Soon after, they changed gears and launched Hyphen.
“When the pandemic hit, we needed to share it in a different direction. Fortunately, we were talking with other restaurant partners about licensing our technology, and decided it made much more sense to help the restaurants that were already there today,” Klein said.
After a rough year for many industry leaders, innovation will continue to be a key trend in the restaurant industry. Shares of Kava and Chipotle have fallen nearly 50% and 40%, respectively, since the beginning of the year, due to backlash from key demographics, including younger consumers. Sweetgreen, another competitor in the healthy salad and bowl space, is down nearly 80% year over year.
sweet green sold its robotics division Spice to mealtime platform Wonder for $186.4 million earlier this year. Sweetgreen acquired Spyce to build its automated Infinite Kitchens and plans to continue using its technology.
Klein said Hyphen is in talks with major brands and food service providers for college campuses and office parks as it looks to not only evolve Makeline but also provide data from food preparation and distribution. The company aims to develop more software in the future, including tools for creating meal preparation schedules for use at home.
One area that is not on the menu, at least for now, is the fast food area.
“We’re really trying to help people who are ordering in bulk and needing a really high mix and high degree of customization in terms of what their guests order. So that’s kind of our strike zone,” he said.
