Well, what do you know?
It looks like the Spinn, a high-profile, well-funded grind and brew coffee maker that’s over two years late, is about to ship. That’s at least according to the latest company update, which features a detailed rundown of the company’s effort to finalize the product and get it out to early customers.
From the post:
Our first shipment is imminent and many factors need to be taken into consideration to make sure your machines are not damaged in transit. Vibrations, shocks, pressure loads, changes in temperature and/or changes in air humidity can damage the units and their packaging as they make their way to your doorstep.
And when I say detailed, I mean detailed. The post discusses packaging design, drop tests, edge crush tests, and so much more. Heck, they even show GIFs of the packages being dropped by a robot:
All of which conveys, rather successfully, that the company is close to shipping the product.
To which I say: it’s about time. Not only does the company have a long line of impatient customers eager to get their hands on the machine, but they also face increased competition from others like Terra Kaffee who are rolling out coffee machines with similar features.
And to fund the final push, it looks like the company raised additional financing. According to Crunchbase, Spinn raised an additional $2.5 million in financing via a convertible note on a $40 million company valuation.
Here’s how the company positioned the raise in their June update:
Building a business, developing an online platform and hardware is a costly process. Spinn sold a massive amount of pre-orders to tens of thousands of people that are eager to get their hands on a Spinn machine. Without our pre-order backers and our investors Spinn wouldn’t be able to grow and build what we’ve built to date. In December we raised our last round and we’re now in the process of closing our next. This money is raised to invest in expansion of the team, R&D, manufacturing and growth of the company.
If it seems like raising more money six months after they raised $3 million in funding is soon, that’s because it is. My guess is that they used the December funding for the continued development of the Spinn and needed to raise more money to fund inventory for both existing backers and new ones.
So fingers crossed. I ordered the Spinn almost three years ago and, like many, have held out. It wasn’t easy, especially since, to their credit, the company has continued to offer to refunds to those who asked. Based on many of the emails I get from former backers, it seems many have taken them up on it.
But every now and then patience is rewarded and for those of us longtime backers who have waited for our the grind and brew centrifugal coffee brewing system, we may soon have our Spinn.
01/17/2020 still waiting for my Spinn Coffee machine….
Looks like it was not imminent