Henry Hu (Cafe X founder)

In its October 2015 “San Francisco Alumni Club Monthly Spotlight” on Cafe X, a Babson College entrepreneurship blog lists his years at Babson College as 2012–2014. At the college he belonged to the Babson Auto Group, where he met Sebastian Gomez Puerto, later a co-founder of Cafe X; the two organized a winter driving clinic with Toyota for the Babson community; he named the college’s 2014 Summer Venture Program as his favorite memory of Babson.⁠[1]

The blog states that before Cafe X he reviewed consumer electronics on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry and earned money from advertising; he said that the products were sent to him free of charge. San José Spotlight wrote in 2019 that he had been a business student at Babson College in MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry.⁠[1][2]

On the origin of the company, PYMNTS wrote in 2018 that a few years earlier, while queuing for coffee at Singapore’s Changi Airport and worried that he would miss his flight, he watched baristas in a tight space repeat highly mechanized movements at speed, and concluded that machines should handle the mechanical parts of brewing so that the human staff could be freed up for more human activities. San José Spotlight wrote in 2019 that in 2014, while visiting family in Singapore over a holiday break, he watched airport workers scramble to collect orders and prepare drinks for harried customers, which gave him the idea of designing a new café with a robot behind the counter.⁠[3][2]

The Babson blog states that the founders were frustrated by long lines at cafés and saw no one addressing the problem at scale, and that their long-term goal was to speed up the adoption of automation in food and drink service; the “X” in the company’s name stands for its unconventional approach. TechCrunchTechCrunchTechCrunch is an American technology news outlet founded in 2005 by Michael Arrington and Keith Teare and headquartered in San Francisco; it mainly covers technology companies, startups, and venture capital, and hosts events such as TechCrunch Disrupt. Its ownership passed successively through AOL, Verizon, and Yahoo, and in 2025 Regent announced its acquisition.Open the full entry wrote in 2017 that he noticed baristas spent most of their time moving cups around while making espresso drinks and decided to build a fully mechanized coffee shop. Business InsiderBusiness InsiderBusiness Insider is a digital business-news organization.Open the full entry India wrote in 2017 that he came up with the idea while studying technology and entrepreneurship at Babson College, and that he says he is neither a coffee connoisseur nor an experienced roboticist.⁠[1][4][5]

The Cafe X offering page on Republic.comRepublic (investment platform)Republic is a New York–based private-markets investment platform whose legal entity is OpenDeal Inc. Founded in 2016 as a spin-out of AngelList by Kendrick Nguyen and Paul Menchov, it began by letting ordinary investors put small amounts into startups under the US Regulation Crowdfunding rules. It later expanded through acquisitions including Fig, NextSeed, the British platform Seedrs and INX into games, local businesses, the European market, and tokenized securities and digital assets.Open the full entry gives the company’s full name as Cafe X Technologies, Inc., a DelawareDelawareDelaware is a U.S. state in the Mid-Atlantic region on the East Coast, with its capital at Dover and Wilmington as its largest city. On December 7, 1787, it became the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, entering the Union as the 1st state, and it had a population of 989,948 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry corporation founded in May 2014; the Babson blog likewise gives 2014 as the founding year and Hong Kong as the headquarters. The Summer 2017 issue of Babson Magazine states that he began working on Cafe X in 2014.⁠[6][1][7]

The Babson blog states that the team had spent the previous seven months designing and building a fully functional hardware and software prototype, and that the first prototype was hosted at the Hong Kong Science Park; in 2014 the company had no significant revenue. Business Insider India wrote that he first tinkered with friends and with Hong Kong-based programmers he had found online, then sold his car and obtained funding from a friend’s family. VICE wrote in 2017 that he left Babson in his second year, sold his car to pursue the project full time, and initially raised between $100,000 and $150,000 for a prototype. Daily Coffee News and PYMNTS wrote in 2018 that he and two friends built the prototype from sheet metal, funded by the $100,000 Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry; Daily Coffee News states that it was built by hand in a Bay Area garage.⁠[1][5][8][9][3]

When the Babson blog profiled Cafe X on October 26, 2015, he was its co-founder and chief executive; the other two co-founders were Jack Sun, 24, the chief financial officer, who brought manufacturing expertise and resources from his family’s business, and Sebastian Gomez Puerto, 30, head of business development for Cafe X Miami. The company then had 20 employees and was funded by family, friends and angel investors.⁠[1][1]

The blog describes customers ordering and paying through an app, scheduling a pickup with arrival detection, and collecting specialty coffee from a fully automated robotic café; the company said this cut café wait times from 10 minutes to 10 seconds, 60 times faster than traditional cafés. Its goal at the time was to open 100 robotic café locations in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry, Hong Kong and Singapore in 2016; its five-year plan was to expand first in the Bay Area, Miami, Hong Kong and Singapore and to add menu items and app features, and its long-term goal was to become the first café on a Mars colony. The company also mentioned a possible future acquisition by a larger food, drink or service company, and was urgently seeking to build a business development and operations team in San Francisco.⁠[1]

The blog states that Cafe X was to join Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH Incubator from November to March and planned to be unveiled at the LAUNCH Festival in March.⁠[1]

TechCrunch wrote in January 2017 that Cafe X had raised a $5 million seed round the previous year from Khosla VenturesKhosla VenturesKhosla Ventures (KV) is an American venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It made heavy early bets on clean technology, became OpenAI’s first venture capital investor in 2019, and its portfolio also includes companies such as DoorDash, Block (formerly Square), Impossible Foods, and Rocket Lab.Open the full entry, Social CapitalSocial CapitalSocial Capital is a US technology investment firm founded in 2011 and led by Chamath Palihapitiya. Its activities evolved from venture funds toward investing and incubation with permanent proprietary capital.Open the full entry, Jason Calacanis, Felicis VenturesFelicisFelicis (whose funds and earlier brand use the name Felicis Ventures) is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, founded in 2006 by former Google product manager Aydin Senkut; it has invested in companies including Shopify, Canva and Adyen.Open the full entry, Silicon Valley BankSilicon Valley BankSilicon Valley Bank was a state-chartered commercial bank founded in California in 1983 and headquartered in Santa Clara. It was the principal subsidiary of the holding company SVB Financial Group, and its clients were concentrated among technology and life sciences companies and venture capital firms. In March 2023, after it announced a securities sale and a capital-raising plan, it suffered a massive run, was closed by California regulators, and was placed into receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. U.S. regulators invoked a systemic risk exception to protect all of its deposits, its deposits and loans were then assumed by First Citizens, its parent entered bankruptcy reorganization, and the regulatory reviews and litigation that followed the failure continued into 2026.Open the full entry and the Thiel Foundation; Fortune listed the same investors on the same day. The Summer 2017 issue of Babson Magazine states that he had raised $5 million in venture capital. Daily Coffee News wrote in 2018 that the company’s two earlier funding rounds had brought in $5.1 million from investors including the Thiel Foundation, Social Capital, Khosla Ventures and Felicis Ventures.⁠[4][10][7][9]

On June 21, 2016, the Thiel Foundation announced its 2016 class of 29 Thiel Fellows, chosen from more than 6,000 applications from around the world, and he was among them. The announcement lists him as from Hong Kong and San Francisco, working in food technology and automation; it describes him as the CEO and co-founder of Cafe X, which designs, manufactures and operates automated robotic cafés that serve locally roasted coffee in 10 seconds. The announcement states that the Thiel Fellowship gives $100,000 to young people who learn by doing rather than by following conventional paths such as college.⁠[11]

Business Insider India wrote in 2017 that he learned in June 2016 that he had been accepted into the Thiel Fellowship, which gives $100,000 to young people who drop out of college to pursue their entrepreneurial interests; he said he was “really surprised,” and he had not yet met the program’s founder, Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry. VICE wrote that he received the $100,000 grant that the Thiel Foundation awards to young entrepreneurs, and Fortune wrote in 2019 that the Thiel Foundation had awarded him $100,000; the founder biography on the Republic.com offering page likewise lists him as a Thiel Fellow.⁠[5][8][12][6]

In January 2017 Cafe X opened its first US location in San Francisco’s Metreon shopping complex; its only other location at the time was at the Hong Kong Science Park. TechCrunch wrote on January 30 that the drinks were made by a Mitsubishi six-axis industrial robot arm, that customers ordered through on-site kiosks or a dedicated app and could choose beans from AKA Coffee, Verve Roasters and Peet’s Coffee, and that each location was meant to source its beans locally; an 8-ounce drink cost $2.25, against the $4 to $5 that comparable drinks usually cost in San Francisco, and the company planned to build more robotic kiosks in Fremont, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry. The summer 2017 issue of Babson Magazine also recorded the opening in its alumni news.⁠[4][9][7]

Asked by TechCrunch about Cafe X’s place in the broader automation trend, he said: “We still have to work on the supply chain, recipes, maintenance, and customer support.” Fortune wrote on the same day that he and his staff had programmed a Mitsubishi robot arm of the kind normally used for screws and bolts in factories to grasp cups, pour without spilling a drop, and reach over to another machine that adds milk or syrup; he wanted to sell the coffee-making machine to other businesses but had not settled on a price, and he said it would cost less than a small traditional café, which the article puts at $250,000 to $350,000 to build.⁠[4][10]

VICE wrote on February 3, 2017, that the modified Mitsubishi arm, named “Gordon,” served more than 400 cups on its first outing, made two drinks at a time and took 25 to 55 seconds per drink; an espresso or americano cost $2.25 and a cappuccino $2.75, with three flavored syrups (vanilla, hazelnut, caramel) plus sugar syrup at levels from low to “insane”; at least one or two “product specialists” were on site at all times to inform customers and offer free espresso flights. He said that a rushed shot would “just get a terrible espresso,” that efficiency would not compromise quality, and that the purpose was “a really great coffee experience.”⁠[8]

Business Insider India wrote that the six-axis industrial robot, encased in a round plexiglass shell, is not very intelligent and performs a predefined set of motions, such as moving a cup between the milk and syrup dispensers or delivering it to the pickup window; he said such robots are common on assembly lines. It can prepare 100 to 120 drinks an hour, depending on the complexity of the orders. His press agent said the company was in talks with several San Francisco tech companies about installing kiosks in their offices.⁠[5]

Daily Coffee News wrote in 2018 that Cafe X’s second kiosk opened later in 2017 at 578 Market Street in San Francisco; Fortune wrote in 2019 that the company opened a storefront with dedicated seating on Market Street in 2018.⁠[9][12]

On February 27, 2018, The Spoon published an interview with him, stating that Cafe X would launch its second-generation “Robotic Coffeebar 2.0” that week. He explained that the core robot was the same Mitsubishi arm, that the San Francisco design firm Ammunition had worked on the machine’s industrial design, user experience and “personality,” and that a new gripper handled 8-ounce and 12-ounce hot cups and 12-ounce cold cups. The 2.0 takes about 40 square feet, can sit against a wall and fits through standard double doors, whereas the 1.0 needed more than 100 square feet, including 4 to 5 feet behind it for its internal refrigerator; he said the smaller size did not necessarily mean a move to smaller locations, and that possible formats included standalone units in places such as office lobbies as well as larger flagship stores with several machines for peak demand.⁠[13]

He said the Market Street location handled about 400 orders a day and that the 2.0 could handle more than 600; a new app allowed several drinks per order, with animations for the customization options designed by Y Media Labs, which he expected to increase order volume. The 1.0 offered one cup size, while the 2.0 served 12-ounce hot drinks and nitro cold brew in 12-ounce clear cups, with nitro tea expected within a few weeks; all cups were biodegradable or compostable. He said the company was “open to” other models, such as placing machines in coffee shops run by others, but that “the current focus is own and operate”; all locations, he said, were performing very well, and running a robotic coffee bar cost less than a traditional one, but the company’s focus was on “quality ingredients, drink consistency, exceptional customer service.”⁠[13]

Daily Coffee News wrote that the third location opened in February 2018 at One Bush Plaza in the financial district and launched the second-generation machine; partner roasters included Intelligentsia Coffee, Ritual Coffee Roasters and Equator Coffees, and each location had product specialists who provided customer service and coffee education. The article states that the design goal was to make Cafe X feel approachable, warm and human; Victoria Slaker, vice president of product design at Ammunition, said in a Cafe X announcement of the new model that having a robot barista make coffee was “pretty mind-blowing” and that the design was meant to showcase that “highly orchestrated display.” The Spoon wrote in August 2018 that Cafe X had a second-generation “barista-bot-in-a-box” kiosk on a downtown San Francisco street corner, designed for high-traffic areas.⁠[9][14]

Daily Coffee News wrote on August 13, 2018, that regulatory filings submitted on August 1, 2018, showed Cafe X Technologies had raised $9.42 million in venture capital toward a $12.01 million goal in a new seed round, with 26 investors committed at the time of filing; the filings were signed by the founder and CEO and named three directors: him, chief operating officer Cynthia Yeung and the Silicon Valley investor Jason Calacanis.⁠[9]

The Spoon wrote that the round, called “Seed-1,” was a $12 million round led by the angel investor Jason Calacanis and Craft Ventures, and that he had confirmed the news to CrunchbaseCrunchbaseCrunchbase is a private-company data and intelligence platform headquartered in San Francisco. It launched in 2007 as TechCrunch’s startup database, and its own company profile lists Michael Arrington as founder. It passed to AOL with TechCrunch in 2010 and was spun out of AOL/Verizon in 2015 with backing from Emergence Capital, with Jager McConnell as CEO; it has since raised more than $100 million and launched Pro, Enterprise, API and Crunchbase News products. Since 2025 it has focused on using AI to forecast private companies’ funding, growth and exits, delivering its data through MCP, APIs and third-party AI platforms.Open the full entry; with the $9.4 million raised so far, the company’s total came to $14.5 million. The Spoon also wrote that earlier in 2018 he had said Cafe X was receiving inbound interest from around the world but would focus its geographic expansion on the Bay Area first.⁠[14]

PYMNTS wrote on August 15, 2018, that in early 2018, after two funding rounds totaling about $5.1 million, the company opened its first fully automated coffee shop in San Francisco and a second kiosk; customers order at a kiosk or in the app and enter a code at pickup, and the robot identifies them by that code and the name on the payment card, which prevents mix-ups; every machine is staffed by an employee, the robot handling the mechanical tasks and the staff the customer interaction; the new $12 million round was then a little over 66 percent complete, and production was the main constraint on expansion. Chief operating officer Cynthia Yeung said: “Coffee is an important ritual for people, and it sets the tone for the rest of their day.”⁠[3]

AgFunderNews wrote on April 29, 2019, that Cafe X Technologies was a runner-up in the AgriFood Tech Innovation awards, had a team of more than 30 people and had raised about $14 million from investors including Craft Ventures, Jason Calacanis, Felicis Ventures and the Thiel Foundation; it had three outlets in San Francisco plus a kiosk at One Bush Street, its robots were named Michael, Robin and Francisco the Second, and the fastest served up to three drinks a minute; Cynthia Yeung said a fourth robot was expected at San Francisco International Airport by September 2019.⁠[15]

He described the company’s concept as “using automation and robotics to do the heavily repetitive and boring tasks,” adding that a “robot able to move cups around is not what makes this exciting”. The article states that his team had been developing its robotics and software in partnership with the German coffee machine maker WMF, and that early on many coffee machine makers had been wary of granting access to their machines’ software. He joked that Cafe X robots might one day serve drinks in a SpaceXSpaceXSpaceX is a company founded by Elon Musk in 2002 whose businesses include space transportation, Starlink satellite communications and artificial intelligence. It went public in 2026 under the ticker SPCX.Open the full entry colony on Mars, and Cynthia Yeung urged him to focus on planetary expansion first, before trying anything too “intergalactic.” The article states that the company planned to build its own production plant in California within a few years and was considering markets with labor shortages, aging populations and openness to robots, of which Cynthia Yeung gave Japan as an example; the team said each outlet could become profitable within a few months, though overall profits were not yet imminent.⁠[15]

In August 2019, chief operating officer Cynthia Yeung announced on LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry that she had left Cafe X after a year and a half. The Spoon wrote on August 22 that in her post she said the company had grown to more than 35 people through its Series A, thanked Henry Hu, Jason Calacanis and David O. SacksDavid SacksDavid Sacks is the founder and a Partner of Craft Ventures, and the White House Special Advisor for AI and Crypto.Open the full entry for the opportunity, and named the upcoming launch at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the hiring of experienced engineers and the building of corporate infrastructure among her accomplishments. Her “Series A” did not match the company’s funding as publicly described (seed and “Seed-1”), and when The Spoon asked her and him whether the company had raised a new round, he replied on Twitter: “We just renamed our Seed-1 as Series A. Looks cleaner.”⁠[16]

The Spoon wrote that SFO would be Cafe X’s first location outside the city of San Francisco; its rival Briggo had initially been awarded the SFO trial contract and had opened its robot coffee kiosk there that summer, and Cynthia Yeung had questioned the SFO Airport Commission in November 2018 about why a TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry-based company received the trial contract. Fortune wrote on August 30, 2019, that Cafe X planned a location in SFO’s Terminal 3, where Briggo already had two kiosks; Cafe X drinks started at $3 and none cost more than $4, with coffee from Intelligentsia, Ritual and Equator. He said most coffee chains now had an automation component: “For example, StarbucksStarbucksStarbucks is a publicly traded coffee company headquartered in Seattle, founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. Howard Schultz subsequently developed its coffeehouse model and international expansion. It operates company-owned and licensed coffeehouses and sells packaged coffee through partners. Its shares trade on Nasdaq under SBUX.Open the full entry already uses automated espresso machines and blenders are also technically automation equipment.”⁠[16][12]

Just before Thanksgiving 2019, Cafe X opened at Mineta San Jose International Airport, in Terminal B between Gates 33 and 34, and the airport announced it in a tweet on December 3, saying that the robot could make and serve more than 10 orders simultaneously within minutes; it was the first airport ever to host a Cafe X, and the company’s fourth location, the other three being two in San Francisco’s Financial District and one at the Metreon. San José Spotlight wrote on December 8 that the robot barista was named “Peter” after the company’s former director of hardware; drinks cost about $3.50 to $5.50, the coffee came from Ritual Coffee, Equator Coffees and Intelligentsia, and ingredients included Swedish oat milk and Japanese matcha; one employee worked on the customer-facing floor and the company had more than 40 staff behind the scenes.⁠[2]

He said that here “You don’t have people shouting out names, throwing cups,” and that the experience was “fast, efficient and peaceful”; San José Spotlight wrote that he was looking for more than a “glorified vending machine.” The Spoon wrote in January 2020 that Cafe X had launched two locations in the fourth quarter of 2019, at San Jose Airport (SJC) and San Francisco Airport (SFO), using the latest version of its robot, with an expanded menu and a customizable space for items such as baked goods.⁠[2][17]

In January 2020 Cafe X closed its three downtown San Francisco locations: the Metreon, a dedicated store on Market Street and a pop-up-style location at Sansome and Bush streets. He confirmed this in a tweet on January 7, writing that “Our 3 downtown SF locations helped us develop the newest machine that we launched recently at SJC and SFO,” thanking customers who had supported them in San Francisco over the previous three years, and saying that customers with prepaid app credits would be refunded and were invited to try the new robots at SJC or SFO. ABC7 (KGO-TV) wrote on January 9 that the café, described as the “world's first automated cafe,” had drawn worldwide attention as the first to use robot baristas when it opened in San Francisco in 2017, and that he hinted at more airport locations.⁠[17][18]

In an emailed statement to The Spoon he said that the company had launched prototype robotic coffee bars in San Francisco in 2017 in an effort to perfect its beverage offerings, software and hardware; that its newest V2.1 product, launched at SFO and SJC in the fourth quarter of 2019, served thousands of customers every week and could make up to six drinks a minute; and that, having learned what it could from San Francisco, the company would focus on airports through partnerships with coffee brands and retailers as well as Cafe X-operated units, with plans to expand to more airports in 2020. He also said the company had sought NSF certification so that its robots could be classed as vending machines, which would let them run longer hours without staff on hand; the San Francisco locations had each had a person helping with drink selection and customer service. The Spoon wrote that the closures, together with the departure of the COO in August 2019, could be read as a sign of more bad news ahead.⁠[17]

Cafe X raised money from the public on Republic.com through a Crowd SAFE, with a funding goal of $1.24 million, a valuation cap of $50 million, and a minimum investment of $150 and a maximum of $250,000; the offering closed successfully on April 29, 2023, having raised $317,398 from 393 investors.⁠[6]

The offering page states that the company was based in South San Francisco, California, and had six employees; it listed over $6 million in sales and over $2 million in revenue generated while the company developed and tested its machines, including over $700,000 from its two machines at SFO in 2022 alone; it shipped five machines to business customers in 2022, and as of March 2023 ten more were being built for customers who had made non-refundable down payments; the Robotic Coffee Bar system was priced at $285,000 plus $15,000 a year for software and services. Its unnamed customers included a Fortune 100 electric-vehicle company, a Big Four professional services firm, a major bank, an energy supermajor, the Museum of the Future and the most awarded specialty coffee roaster in the United States.⁠[6]

The offering page states in one place that the company had raised $17 million to date and in another that it had previously raised “over $10M in capital”; the investors it names include David Sacks of Craft Ventures (Series A), Jason Calacanis of Launch, Chamath PalihapitiyaChamath PalihapitiyaChamath Palihapitiya is an investor and business operator who founded and leads Social Capital, and is also co-founder and CEO of the AI software company 8090 and a co-host of the All-In podcast. He previously ran user growth at Facebook and took part in taking several companies public through the Social Capital Hedosophia series of special purpose acquisition companies; he is also an early investor in and director of Beast Industries.Open the full entry of Social Capital (Series Seed), Vinod KhoslaVinod KhoslaVinod Khosla is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, the founder of Khosla Ventures, a co-founder of Daisy Systems and Sun Microsystems, and Sun’s founding chief executive officer. His investments and public commentary span computer networking, clean energy, health care, and artificial intelligence; after his family acquired the Seattle Seahawks in 2026, he became the team’s Chair.Open the full entry of Khosla Ventures, Aydin SenkutAydin SenkutAydin Senkut is the founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Felicis. He previously worked at Google.Open the full entry of Felicis Ventures, Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners and Peter Thiel of the Thiel Foundation. The team section lists him as founder and Jason Calacanis as director.⁠[6]

In November 2023 Elon MuskElon MuskElon Musk is an entrepreneur who founded SpaceX and has long served as chief executive of Tesla; he also took part in creating PayPal, OpenAI, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and xAI. He acquired Twitter in 2022, and his businesses span spaceflight, electric vehicles, energy, artificial intelligence, and social media.Open the full entry posted a flythrough video of the newly finished lobby at TeslaTeslaTesla is an American electric vehicle and energy company whose businesses span automobiles, solar energy, and battery energy storage. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, its shares are listed on Nasdaq under the ticker TSLA.Open the full entry’s Berlin Gigafactory (Giga Berlin), writing that it was “filled with cool tech for visitors!”, and he, as CEO of Cafe X, reposted it. The Spoon wrote on November 10 that the coffee and tea in the lobby were served by a Cafe X robotic coffee bar whose arms were painted red and carried the word “Tesla.”⁠[19]

The Spoon wrote that Cafe X had been quiet over the previous couple of years while it closed most of its San Francisco locations, that its last disclosed venture round was in 2020, and that it had since raised money through the crowdfunding platform Republic.com; he had recently tweeted about shipping new Cafe X units and receiving Tesla merchandise. The article adds that Jason Calacanis, one of Cafe X’s original investors and a close associate of Elon Musk, had been promoting the idea of robotic cafés.⁠[19]

As of November 2026, the locations page of the Cafe X website lists: in California, San Francisco International Airport Terminal 3 East (departures and arrivals) and Terminal 1 near Gate B2, a corporate office in Palo Alto and the lobby of the Astellas West Coast Innovation Center in South San Francisco (all operated by Cafe X), and RegentX at the Glendale Galleria; the lobby of the Museum of the Future in Dubai; the public visitor lobby of Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg; in ArkansasArkansasArkansas is a U.S. state bounded on the east by the Mississippi River; its capital and largest city is Little Rock. Arkansas was admitted to the Union on June 15, 1836, as the 25th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 3,011,524.Open the full entry, locations in Bentonville and at Northwest Arkansas National Airport operated by Onyx Coffee Lab; in OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry, JPMorgan ChaseJPMorgan Chase & Co.JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a financial holding company headquartered in New York that operates investment banking, consumer and small business financial services, commercial banking, financial transaction processing and asset management under its J.P. Morgan and Chase brands; its roots trace back to the Manhattan Company of 1799.Open the full entry Polaris, inside the JPMorgan Chase & Co. headquarters in Columbus; in KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry, DeloitteDeloitteDeloitte is a global professional services network made up of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms, providing audit and assurance, consulting, tax and legal services. It reported aggregate revenue of $74.5 billion for fiscal 2026 and has nearly 500,000 people.Open the full entry’s The Smart Factory in Wichita; and in Texas, Freelancer’s Café in Athens and the Innovation Outpost of Amarillo College. The page’s copyright line reads “Copyright © 2026 Cafe X Technologies, Inc.”⁠[20]

The Thiel Foundation’s 2016 announcement describes him as a native of Beijing; the founder biography on the Republic.com offering page says he “Grew up in Hong Kong” and that he dropped out of college to start Cafe X after spending too much time waiting in line for coffee, and VICE wrote in 2017 that he was a college dropout from Hong Kong. The Babson blog states that he attended the same high school as his Cafe X co-founder Jack Sun.⁠[11][6][8][1]

When the Babson blog profiled him in October 2015 it gave his age as 21; Business Insider India in January 2017 and VICE in February 2017 gave it as 23; San José Spotlight gave it as 25 in December 2019.⁠[1][5][8][2]

The Babson blog states that he enjoys flying drones and aerial photography; his favorite restaurant was Eatsa in San Francisco and the last book he had read was The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben HorowitzBen HorowitzBen Horowitz is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and business author who co-founded Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with Marc Andreessen in 2009. He previously led Loudcloud’s transition into Opsware and its 2007 sale to Hewlett-Packard. His writing and investing address startup management, organizational culture and the relationship between technology and cultural industries.Open the full entry; he admires Elon Musk, who in his words “Works on solving extremely difficult problems,” and SpaceX, for making humans “a multi-planetary species”; the person at Babson who influenced him most was Kevin Colleran.⁠[1]

Business Insider India wrote in 2017 that he hates waiting in coffee-shop lines and drinks about five cups of coffee a day on average. The founder biography on the Republic.com offering page says he is “Really good at repairing coffee machines and drinking espresso,” and lists him as “ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry 30 under 30” and as a Business Insider “30 and under tech industry rising star.”⁠[5][6]

Cafe X: Official website: https://cafexapp.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[20]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[21]

X: Public account: https://x.com/supergeek18 (opens in a new window).⁠[6][17]