[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]WI Harper Group | June 9, 2020 Source: VentureBeat[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1592248462591{background-color: #e4e4e4 !important;}”]WI Harper-backed Drop, the San Francisco and Dublin based smart kitchen platform startup, announced that it had raised $13.3 million in Series A1 funding. The round wasco-led by Alpha Edison and Morpheus Ventures, with participation by WI Harper Group, Alsop Louie Partners, and other investors. Steve Horowitz, partner at Alpha Edison, and Ray Musci, managing director at Morpheus Ventures, will join Drop’s board of directors.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tj-wJ2cQyQ&feature=youtu.be” el_width=”80″ align=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Drop, a smart kitchen platform that wants to unify what it calls the “fragmented cooking experience,” has secured $13.3 million in a series A round of funding. This comes as consumers continue to invest in contraptions that connect their home to the internet, from video doorbells to refrigerators infused with computer vision. The smart kitchen market specifically was pegged at $14.5 billion in 2019, a figure that could more than double within five years.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
| Home cooking
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Drop offers a platform for connecting appliance manufacturers, recipe publishers, and grocers to home cooks. Founded out of Ireland in 2012, the Dublin-based company originally focused on hardware, developing a connected kitchen scale that was sold globally through Apple Stores. But Drop pivoted to software in 2015, with the goal of “connecting all stages of the cooking journey.” Today, that includes a mobile app with recipes, and Drop partners with multiple appliance makers — including Bosch, Kenwood, GE Appliances, and Electrolux — to tightly integrate those recipes with kitchen equipment.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]“We are building the one app that orchestrates all smart kitchen appliances and delivering the full stack IoT (internet of things) platform under the hood for the appliances to work seamlessly in that world,” Drop CEO Ben Harris told VentureBeat.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]This means that beyond Drop’s clients across mobile, web, and voice, it works closely with the technologies required to make smartphones talk to home appliances, including IoT firmware, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Drop also gives companies insights into how consumers are using their appliances and recipes.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Users add appliances to their Drop profile, and the app “rewrites” the recipe to suit — entirely localized by region. The Drop “translation engine” converts a recipe from cups to fluid ounces or grams to milliliters, for example. Drop also sends the temperatures, cooking times, and settings directly to a connected appliance to ensure the food is cooked properly.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image source=”external_link” external_img_size=”800×100″ alignment=”center” custom_src=”https://wiharper.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Picture1.png” caption=”Above: Drop: Smart kitchen platform”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The humble kitchen is now home to all manner of connected devices, including smart faucets that let users start and stop water flow with their voice and exhaust vents with embedded touchscreens. But it’s ultimately about making food — and we’ve seen a number of contenders in this burgeoning field. Samsung last year acquired a smart food platform called Whisk, which uses deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to build an extensive “food genome” that charts the relationships between ingredients and their individual properties. Whisk plays a big role in Samsung’s connected kitchen, underpinning the meal-planning smarts in Samsung fridges.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Drop and Whisk have different methods but a similar goal — making recipes and shopping lists work more cohesively with the modern kitchen. One of Drop’s selling points is that it’s entirely appliance-agnostic — reflecting the fact that many (or most) kitchens house multiple brands.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Drop and Whisk have different methods but a similar goal — making recipes and shopping lists work more cohesively with the modern kitchen. One of Drop’s selling points is that it’s entirely appliance-agnostic — reflecting the fact that many (or most) kitchens house multiple brands.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”100px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
| About WI Harper Group
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Founded in 1993, WI Harper is a pioneer and leading cross-border venture capital firm investing in early and expansion stage companies across Greater China, Asia Pacific and the US. With offices in Beijing, Taipei, and San Francisco, the firm actively oversees more than $1 billion in assets under management. Since inception nearly three decades ago, WI Harper has invested in over 400 startups and has successfully experienced more than 100 IPO and M&A exits.
We look for innovative companies and visionary founders in healthcare and technology fields where there are high synergies and meaningful value added cross selling opportunities. While our healthcare team is presently focused on bioinformatics as well as digital biology, our technology team has a more generalist approach covering big data, analytics, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, IoT, robotics, drones, autonomous driving, as well as digital media and green energy projects.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
