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Eli is partnering with hospitality giant Sodexo to bring the Mobile Smart Shop — a fancy vending machine on wheels — to Comic Con this year.
One of Ellie’s robots, loaded with Sodexo carne asada burritos and 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade, will serve up 135,000 attendees at the San Diego Convention Center’s Comic Con around the main tent.
Eli will only have one mobile smart store at the July 21-24 event, but this partnership with Sodexo could provide opportunities for expansion in the future. Sodexo has a footprint on several college campuses across the US, and has demonstrated its commitment to testing new technology by partnering with robotic sidewalk delivery company Kiwibot.
Comic Con guests can approach the robot, which moves “at the speed of a turtle,” Tortoise co-founder Dmitry Shevelenko said. A remote operator detects an eager customer and stops the robot, allowing the customer to pay by credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. This will open the cart, revealing the food inside. Customers are trusted to take the exact number of burritos or Gatorades they order and be on their merry way. Transactions take less than 15 seconds to complete, Eli says.
Eli has started using its remote positioning technology to balance its shared electric scooters. Last year, Ellie introduced robotic walkways to supermarkets and convenience store chains, and this year, it began tracking mobile-only smart stores.
The business model differs from the hardware-as-a-service model. Instead, Eli uses a takeover model, in which it offers the robot and software for free and takes 10% of gross sales.
To date, Eli has 40 mobile smart stores across the U.S., Shevelenko said.
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