Robotics and Pizza with Moto Pizza

Lee Kindell didn't come from robotics. He came from a century-old sourdough starter, a shuttered hostel, and a pandemic that forced his hand. What he built out of that — Moto Pizza, now one of Seattle's most talked-about restaurant concepts — turned out to be one of the most compelling real-world robotics deployments in the city. Picnic pizza robots. Drone delivery. Stadium-scale automation. A three-month waitlist.

This isn't food tech. It's hard tech, running in production, built by a founder who got there through necessity and curiosity rather than a CS degree.

Actuate Ventures is bringing Lee to UW CoMotion Startup Hall for a fireside during Seattle Deep Tech Week — an honest conversation about his journey, what he's learned deploying robotics in the workplace, and where he thinks it's all heading.

Oh, and Moto is catering. 🦾 So you'll hear from the most delicious founder in Seattle while eating the best pizza in Seattle — some of it made by robots.

Seating is limited. Grab your spot before this one fills up.

Hosted by Actuate Ventures in partnership Moto Pizza and our partners at TalentReach

TalentReach is a boutique staffing company that provides executive search, staff augmentation, professional services, nearshore technology solutions, and recruitment support such as project-based recruiting, contract staffing, RPO, recruiting strategy consulting, internal recruiter training, onboarding, and pipeline building. It serves clients across the US, Canada, and Latin America, with practice areas spanning business, technology, and healthcare talent, including sales and marketing, business agility, technology enablement, data-driven insights, cybersecurity, cloud migration, development, and healthcare staffing

Moto Pizza started in 2021 as a pandemic pivot — a 500-square-foot shop in West Seattle, under $60K in startup costs, and a sourdough starter named Betty that's over 100 years old. It went viral overnight and never looked back.

Today Moto is one of the fastest-growing pizza concepts in the Pacific Northwest, with locations across Seattle, Edmonds, Bellingham, Bellevue, and a stand inside T-Mobile Park. Yelp ranked Moto #41 on its list of the 100 best pizza restaurants in the U.S. Eater Seattle called it the best pizza in the city.

What sets Moto apart isn't just the Detroit-style pies or the odd, rotating toppings — it's the robots. Founder Lee Kindell has deployed Picnic pizza automation across his kitchens, enabling one person to produce at stadium scale, and is actively exploring drone delivery and beyond. At stadiums, the Picnic system enables one person to make 1,000 pizzas every three hours.

Moto is proof that craft and automation aren't opposites. It's just the most delicious robotics company in Seattle.