Nightfood acquires $52.8M hotel in SoCal for hospitality robots to practice in

Nightfood Holdings has acquired the 120-room Hilton Garden Inn Rancho Mirage for approximately $52.8 million, marking the company’s fifth hotel purchase in less than two years as it transforms into TechForce Robotics. The acquisition strategy positions hotels as live testing environments for the company’s Robotics-as-a-Service platform, targeting hospitality automation as its entry point into the broader robotics market.

The big picture: Nightfood is building a vertically integrated robotics ecosystem that combines real estate ownership with technology development, using hotel properties as operational laboratories for AI-connected service robots.

Why this matters: The hospitality industry faces persistent staffing challenges for “heavy-duty, repetitive, dirty and injury-prone tasks,” creating a compelling market for automation solutions that can be tested and refined in real-world hotel environments.

Key details: The acquisition of Treasure Mountain Holdings, which owns the California property, represents another step in the company’s strategic transformation from its original business model.

• CEO Jimmy Chan described this as “another defining step” toward building the integrated robotics platform.
• The company operates under TechForce Robotics as it pivots toward technology-driven operations.
• Hotels serve as both revenue-generating assets and testing sites for robotics development.

How it works: The Robotics-as-a-Service platform uses hotel acquisitions as deployment sites for testing and operational benchmarking.

• Service robots can be developed, refined, and demonstrated in actual hotel operating conditions.
• The approach creates AI-connected environments where technology performance can be measured against real guest service requirements.
• Hotel ownership provides stable, asset-backed revenue streams alongside the recurring revenue potential from robotics services.

Strategic approach: The company combines cutting-edge automation innovation with traditional real estate stability, allowing for controlled testing environments while generating operational income from hotel properties.