Like robot pizza makers or autonomous baristas, an area of food technology that has captivated numerous venture capitalists is at-home drink machines. Cana Technology Inc. has been pitching an all-in-one beverage maker that can produce cocktails, coffee, seltzer or wine by adding water to its machine-mixed concoctions. The company is backed by the Production Board, which counts Alphabet Inc. and Laurene Powell Jobs as investors and said in January that it had poured $30 million into Cana and planned to expand its staff.
But in a sign of how quickly the venture capital market has turned, Cana’s subsequent fundraising efforts have stalled, and the startup in June quietly laid off 16% of its staff, said people familiar with the business. The cuts included the heads of the company’s product and marketing divisions.
