Daily Blends Launches AI-Powered Fresh Food Vending Machines, Announces $2 Million Funding and Multi-Year Partnership with Metrolinx

Daily Blends, an AI tech company disrupting the automated foodservice industry with smart vending machines offering fresh, healthy food options, announced its USD $2 million in investment co-led by San Francisco-based Hustle Fund and New York-based 2048 Ventures. This financing will accelerate Daily Blends’ plan to deploy its AI-powered smart vending machines at many locations across the Metrolinx network, starting with Union Station. These vending machines will offer high-quality, fresh food to millions of commuters in the Greater Toronto Hamilton area.

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Consumer demand for healthy yet affordable food has increased at a time when the price of food, real estate, and labor have increased. Daily Blends is fulfilling that demand through its data-centric retail platform and delivering healthier food options offered in a smarter way. The result is a healthy, fresh food option for an average price of $6, notably less than the cost of a typical fast-casual meal.

The company’s software analyzes real-time sales, inventory, and user data from each vending machine, generating multi-level user, location and network insights and powering a highly optimized end-to-end supply chain achieving high product availability and minimal food waste.

Daily Blends’ in-house technology and algorithms generate insights on accurate demand forecasts, most optimum assortments, share of shelf, promotions, product recommendations, fueling high customer retention, while optimizing delivery schedules and minimizing out of stocks.

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“The combination of powerful data insights and plug-and-play smart vending machines, further combined with an omnichannel experience, helps us address new-age, evolving consumer needs while keeping our model agile and removing the heavy capital and labor costs associated with traditional retail formats,” said Shriya Gupta, CEO and co-founder of Daily Blends. “We’re excited to bring affordable, healthy options to Toronto commuters and we look forward to expanding our reach with our additional funding.”

“Daily Blends is unique and is reimagining the convenience of healthy food for on-the-go consumers,” said Elizabeth Yin, general partner of Hustle Fund. “Their strong back-end technology tied to third-party-vending machines makes them asset-light and highly scalable. We are thrilled to support the company and look forward to their growth and further success.”

“We’re excited to work with Daily Blends to bring high quality, convenient and healthier food options to our customers,” said Mark Childs, Chief Marketing Officer, Metrolinx. “This partnership will help enhance the customer experience, with on-the-go food and beverage choices to help make their journey on GO Transit and UP Express even more enjoyable.”

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