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Busy bars to benefit from ‘affordable’ robot bartender

Bartender robots may seem like nothing more than a science fiction idea, but they could soon become more commonplace after a prototype received £2 million backing.

Monsieur, the artificially intelligent robot bartender, may be coming to a bar near you sooner than you think

The artificially intelligent robotic bartender named Monsieur, which was unveiled through a Kickstarter campaign at the start of this year, has been given a new lease of life after attracting significant funding from seed investors.

Among them are NBA star Glen Davis, NFL player Derrick Morgan, Base Ventures, Paul Judge, TechSquare Labs and BIP Capital leading the round.

The investment will enable the robot’s creators to roll out Monsieur to on-trade accounts across the US this year.

Barry Givens, Monsieur co-founder and CEO, said: “People want smart connected devices that provide great design, choice, and convenience.

“Monsieur is the first to deliver that for bartending and cocktails. This investment will allow us to accelerate our product development.”

Monsieur is something of an intelligent cocktail vending machine, able to dispense up to 25 cocktails while choosing the perfect option for users according to their personal preferences.

The robot also has the ability to make drinks to order remotely via Bluetooth, wifi and Zigbee, and offer commercial businesses business analytics and real-time usage monitoring.

“Social drinking is a core part of the hospitality industry but technology has overlooked it for a century,” said Jamie Hamilton, managing director of BIP Capital’s Early Stage Fund. “Monsieur has built unique products that allow venues to upgrade the customer experience, reduce costs and increase revenue.”

While the first batch of the US$3,999 Monsieur units have already sold out, pre-orders are now being taken.

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