Circus buys culinary robotics startup Aitme to cut the cost of AI-made food

A foodtech startup running AI-crafted culinary offerings from micro kitchen hubs in German cities, founded by a former Flink co-founder.

Owning culinary robotics in-house — not partnering for it — is what makes AI-designed personalized meals cheap enough to scale.

Terms of the Aitme acquisition undisclosed; Circus had raised €18M from BlackMars Capital, 2bX, WestTech Ventures, Ride Capital investor Verena Pausder, Pink Capital founder Lea-Sophie Cramer and fromAtoB CEO Gunnar Berning.

Circus was founded in 2022 in Hamburg by Nikolas Bullwinkel, previously a co-founder of quick-commerce grocer Flink, to produce AI-crafted meals through compact micro kitchen hubs.

By 2023 Circus had extended its footprint to Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin and Duisburg. In August 2023 it completed the acquisition of Aitme, a Berlin culinary robotics startup, folding Aitme's cooking robot into its offering to bring costs down further — citing the robots' ability to reduce cooking times and decrease food waste.

Vertical integration closes the loop: the AI that designs dishes can now optimize the robot that cooks them, which a supplier relationship would keep slow.

Aitme's robots attack the two costs that decide foodtech economics — labor hours and wasted food.

Four-city footprint by year one gave the robotics an immediate deployment network rather than a lab demo.

In food automation, the recipe algorithm and the machine that executes it want to be one company — buying the robotics beats bolting them on.

As of August 29, 2023, the acquisition was complete and Circus was operating in four German cities on €18M raised; the company positioned the combined AI-plus-robotics stack as its platform for expansion.