Water Tower Research Publishes Initiation of Coverage Report on Circus SE, “Someone’s in the Kitchen with AI; A Robotic Revolution in Foodservice”

February 18, 2026, ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Water Tower Research (www.watertowerresearch.com) has published an Initiation of Coverage Report on Circus SE (XETRA: CA1) titled, “Someone’s in the Kitchen with AI; A Robotic Revolution in Foodservice”. The report can be accessed here.

Circus SE is a German embodied AI robotics company that is building the world’s first commercially viable fully autonomous kitchen systems for commercial and defense markets. The company targets the multi-trillion-dollar foodservice industry, one of the world’s largest and oldest industries, which has historically been defined by manual labor, chronic staff shortages, and high food waste. Circus’ core solution combines patented robotic hardware with a proprietary AI operating system (CircusOS) to automate fresh meal production end- to-end—from ingredient dispensing and cooking to plating, packaging, and self-cleaning—with near-zero labor input. Its flagship CA-1 is a compact, ~7 m² autonomous kitchen that produces 80–100 meals per hour with 24/7 operation. The militarized CA-M variant houses the same core technology in a 20-foot container, producing ~350 meals per hour for defense and disaster relief scenarios. Both products are powered by CircusOS, which is AI-first and LLM-agnostic, with an integrated AI router that can seamlessly switch between LLMs (including Meta’s Llama), while on-device GPUs process thousands of data points per meal for demand prediction, waste reduction, and procurement automation. Key differentiators include the ~40 patents protecting its core technology and a razor-blade business model that bundles hardware unit sales with recurring CircusOS software subscriptions, delivering significant labor cost savings and operational scalability compared with traditional staffed kitchens and contract catering providers. By leveraging advanced robotics and machine learning, the company enables enterprise, retail, and military customers to replace costly on-site kitchen staff and siloed food operations with a unified, intelligent, self-optimizing meal production platform.

Circus’ marquee customer roster, including Meta, REWE (one of Europe’s largest retailers), and the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr), provides powerful third-party validation of the technology’s commercial viability, as does the company’s NATO certification from the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) in August 2025 and US Department of Defense supplier approval.

Circus trades at 1.2x our 2027 sales estimate versus the peer average of 4.6x despite a higher growth rate than peers.

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