Josef Chen

Josef Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Kaikaku, a London-based food robotics company transforming back-of-house operations in the hospitality industry. Born and raised in Austria to a family of Chinese heritage, Chen grew up working in his parents' Chinese restaurant from the age of six — peeling potatoes, marinating meats, and handling the repetitive prep work that defines commercial kitchen labour. That childhood experience planted the seed for what would become Kaikaku's founding mission: to automate the tedious and dangerous tasks in food preparation so that kitchen staff can focus on genuine hospitality.

A prodigious technologist from an early age, Chen created one of the world's first Bitcoin faucets at age 13, attracting over 150,000 daily users. He went on to study at the University of Warwick and Imperial College London, and subsequently worked in private equity at Proterra Asia before returning to the food and technology world. He also served as the first intern at Bitpanda, Austria's first unicorn startup, gaining early exposure to the high-growth startup environment.

In 2023, Chen co-founded Kaikaku alongside Dr David Sharp, Piers Millar, and Junaid Hussain, with a vision to build modular robotic systems for commercial kitchens. The company simultaneously opened Common Room, a bowl restaurant in London's Brunswick Centre, which operates as a live laboratory for developing and testing its Fusion kitchen automation system. The approach has enabled rapid hardware iteration in real commercial conditions, and Common Room has served thousands of bowls using the company's robotic technology.

Under Chen's leadership, Kaikaku raised £1.4 million in 2024 from 7Percent Ventures, Auctor, and Interface Capital, and has attracted advisors from Subway, Mars Inc, and Caffè Nero. Chen has become a prominent voice on the future of restaurant automation, advocating for a model that enhances — rather than replaces — the human experience at the heart of hospitality.