After receiving a Thiel Fellowship in 2016, Henry Hu dropped out of Babson College to build his robot coffee startup, Cafe X, full-time. Its first product, a robotic coffee bar, uses an industrial robotic arm paired with a funky robot personality to serve coffee, making up to three drinks in 40 seconds. Hu sees robotics and artificial intelligence as automating a lot of the food service industry in the future. To help execute that vision, Hu recruited a team of more than 20 people and raised $12 million in funding from investors including Craft Ventures, Jason Calacanis and Felicis Ventures. He was also recently listed as one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 for his work in Consumer Technology.

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