Michaela McVetty, Kadabra co-founder, demonstrates how the Kadabra pod works. (Photo courtesy Kadabra)

Kadabra, the Portland startup formerly known as Veebie that briefly tested its concept for a tech-enabled, self-serve food “pod” in downtown Portland last October, has raised $1 million in seed funding and deployed its official beta pod—this time in Portland, Ore.

The company has developed a self-serve food kiosk, which it calls a Kadabra pod, and companion smartphone app that allows people to browse a menu, and select and pay for a meal from the Kadabra app (available for both iOS and Android). The meal would be waiting for the customer in a locked cubby, the identifying number of which would be shared with the customer on the app after the meal is paid for. The cubby wouldn’t unlock until the customer physically arrives at the pod to pick up their lunch.

The prototype the company tested over 10 days last October on the corner of Temple and Middle streets proved that people were willing to pay for their lunch via an app and then pick it up themselves from one of the cubbies.

Kadabra is still based in Portland, Maine, and manufactured its second-generation kiosk here, but shipped it to the West Coast in mid June for its official beta test.

Co-founder and CEO Steven Sperry had told Maine Startups Insider last October while testing the prototype that the company’s intention was to ultimately deploy its kiosks in some of the country’s largest cities, so it wanted to select a larger city for its “scale test.”

Steven Sperry (left), Michaela McVetty, and Yona Belfort, co-founders of Kadabra, pose with their prototype self-service food kiosk in downtown Portland, Maine, on Oct. 18, 2017. (Photo/Maine Startups Insider)

The selection of Portland, Ore., as the site for the official beta launch likely has something to do with the fact that one of its investors is Elevate Capital, a Portland, Ore.-based VC fund. In a Form D filed on June 26 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Kadabra claimed it raised $1 million in debt and convertible notes from 12 investors.

The company’s initial business model is to partner with restaurants that are looking to expand their reach and visibility, according to Sperry. Kadabra would own and deploy pods branded for its restaurant partner, and charge the restaurant a monthly fee for each pod they lease, plus a percentage of every order they sell via the platform. 

“Taken together, we expect these fees to be considerably less than the 30% to 35% charged by delivery services like Amazon and UberEATs,” Sperry tells MSI.

Sperry last October estimated that a mobile outdoor version of its pod, like the one they tested in Portland last October, could generate roughly $500,000 a year in revenue if deployed in a major urban area. The cost of manufacturing a cart is a fraction of that, so the payback should be very quick, he said at the time. However, the beta version in Oregon is a smaller and stationary indoor pod and is expected to generate revenues significantly less than that, Sperry said.

Kadabra’s first official restaurant partner is Garden Bar, a Portland, Ore.-based chain of salad-focused restaurants. Garden Bar is also an Elevate Capital portfolio company.

The Garden Bar-branded Kadabra pod is now located at CENTRL Eastside at 329 NE Couch St. in Portland, Ore.

KADABRA from Herman Mantis on Vimeo.