A robot that cooks a fresh crêpe from scratch in 90 seconds sounds like a trade show gimmick. But Maus Robotics just secured CHF 150,000 from Swiss startup program Venture Kick to prove it’s a real business – and the Basel-based startup already has 2,500 crêpes of real-world evidence behind it.
The latest Venture Kick tranche brings the company’s total funding from the program to CHF 190,000. First permanent installations in Basel are opening this summer. Europe expansion is planned for 2027.
What Maus Robotics Actually Built
Maus Robotics is developing robots with a footprint of less than one square metre that can prepare fresh crêpes from raw ingredients on demand. By combining robotics with automated food preparation, the system delivers warm meals in just 90 seconds, offering customers a fresh alternative to the usual cold snack, whether on the move or eating outside regular hours.
That’s the core product in one paragraph: compact, autonomous, and fast. No kitchen staff, no prep time, no warm-up. The robot takes a customer’s order, spreads the batter, cooks and folds the crêpe, and plates it – start to finish.
The Origin Story Begins at EPFL
The idea didn’t start with a market study. CEO Robert Hennig, a robotics PhD from EPFL, came up with it when his campus canteen shut down during his studies, leaving students scrambling for meals for six months. He started building the first prototype in August 2025 with hardware that cost just CHF 5,000–6,000 – and the hardest engineering challenge turned out to be spreading batter evenly.
To get it right, he worked in an actual crêperie, learning traditional Breton technique – pouring batter onto a large hot plate and spreading it manually with a wooden tool. It proved harder to replicate than expected. That hands-on approach to understanding the problem before engineering a solution shows in a product that actually works in public.
From Prototype to Permanent Installations
The real inflection point came at a pilot week in Basel. In just 45 minutes, 11 people ordered a crêpe from the autonomous robot, choosing toppings, paying, watching it cook live, and enjoying it 90 seconds later. That moment shifted the team from “interesting prototype” to “this works in the real world.”
Maus Robotics has already prepared more than 2,500 crêpes at events across Switzerland and is opening its first long-term installations in Basel this summer. The startup is building a pipeline of locations in the Basel area, from universities and hospitals to corporate campuses and leisure venues, before expanding to other European cities in 2027.
Where the Money Goes
The Stage 2 funding allows Maus Robotics to build multiple robots and move from pilots to permanent installations. The team is moving into a new workspace, hiring engineers, and industrialising the system. The goal is to deploy the first cluster of crêpe robots in Basel and operate them continuously – a key step to validate the business model and prepare for scaling.
The CHF 150,000 Stage 3 funding then accelerates that foundation: building the first robot cluster, investing in R&D, hiring additional robotics engineers, and adding a business development function to set up the European expansion.
A Market Problem Worth Solving
The business case is more serious than the product might suggest at first glance. Modern consumers seek quick, fresh, warm and affordable meals, yet restaurants cannot meet this demand because of labor shortages and high rents. Supermarket ready-to-eat products fill the gap in convenience but lack freshness, leaving strong unmet demand for accessible, freshly prepared food.
A machine with a sub-one-square-metre footprint that runs 24/7 without staff, sits in a university lobby or hospital corridor, and serves a genuinely fresh hot meal in 90 seconds – that’s not competing with restaurants. It’s filling a gap those restaurants can’t reach.
Maus Robotics is co-founded by brothers Robert Hennig (robotics PhD, EPFL) and Marten Hennig (BCG associate), a technical-commercial pairing that’s already drawing comparisons to the founding teams behind Europe’s most successful deep tech startups.
Conclusion – Food Robotics Gets Its Swiss Moment
Most food automation plays are either massive industrial systems or novelty installations that close after a month. Maus Robotics is deliberately threading the needle: compact enough to go anywhere, fast enough to be genuinely useful, and backed by a program that specialises in turning Swiss technical research into real companies.
Basel this summer. European cities in 2027. The crêpe robot might be the most Swiss way imaginable to pioneer the next wave of food automation – and it already has 2,500 satisfied customers to back up the pitch.
Want to see how food automation fits into the broader physical AI and robotics story? Read our breakdown of the Hyphen and Motoniq partnership for AI-driven food automation to see how the same wave is playing out at commercial scale.
