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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

crowdfunding

SpiceHero’s Creator Wants to Modernize a Stone Age Tool To Help Make Tastier Spices

If you’re a chef or a spice aficionado, there’s a good chance you use a mortar and pestle to crush your spices. But for the rest of us who are happy to buy our spices in the form of pre-ground powders from the grocery store, we’re missing out.

That’s at least according to Thomas Weigele, who is currently running a campaign on Kickstarter to get his invention – an automated mortar and pestle called the SpiceHero – funded. So why would someone want to create a modern version of a tool that has been in use since the Stone Age?

According to Wiegele, the idea came back when he was on the APAC consumer insights team for B/S/H Appliances, where his team would conduct ethnographic studies on markets in Asia. During one study about cooking behaviors across all socioeconomic groups in India, Weigele says one insight came up over and over: “Preparing spices with a mixer-grinder is good, but taste was much better when my mom or grandma prepared it with a Mortar and Pestle.”

He and a colleague soon realized it wasn’t just nostalgia. When they ran tests, it became clear this ancient tool for smashing and grinding spices brought out flavors in ways other methods did not. Electric spice grinder/mixers slice the spices into a uniform dust, while a mortar and pestle would result in a pleasing “mix of coarse and fine particles for dry spices and pastes have more texture and can extract the oil from the seeds, herbs and vegetables.”

Those insights resulted in B/S/H approving a project led by Wiegele to make a prototype for a semi-automated mortar and pestle machine. Unfortunately, the device, which ground the spices by rotating the stone inside the bowl, did not provide the same results as a traditional mortar and pestle. Weigele and others proposed a fully automated (with pounding motion and all) version, but B/S/H management did not give the green light.

When Wiegele left B/S/H and decided to head to school to get his masters degree in 2019, he couldn’t shake the idea of an automated mortar and pestle, so he soon hired a freelance engineer and started working on a prototype. Two iterations later, he was ready to launch his device on Kickstarter.

The SpiceHero looks a bit like a small stand mixer, only instead of beaters or mixing blades, the machine featured a pestle that pounds the contents of the bowl (mortar) at the rate of once a second. Wiegele hopes the machine, which starts at €140 as one of the reward tiers, will be ready to ship to backers in about a year.

First, though, the campaign needs to get funded. Wiegele has capped the amount for industrial design in the campaign at €20 thousand ($23.4 thousand), and after that, the rest will be used for tooling and inventory. With about three weeks to go, the campaign for the Spice Hero stands at about 50% funded around about €10 thousand.

If you’d like to back a project that could up your spice game with this modernized take on an ancient tool, you can check out the SpiceHero Kickstarter page here.

Smoothie Robot Blendid Joins The Equity Crowdfunding Crowd With $2 Million Raise

Blendid, the maker of smoothie-making robots, announced today it had raised $2 million via crowdfunding platform StartEngine. According to the announcement sent to The Spoon, the raise brings the company’s total funding to $20 million raised through venture capital, strategic funding, and crowdfunding. The company raised funds over a four month period from over 1475 individual investors.

From the release:

Blendid is currently focused on growing its location footprint to increase its reach across the United States and perfect its food automation platform. Recently announcing its expansion plans to two new geographic areas, Blendid will use the additional funds to accelerate its expansion into the Southern California and Georgia markets with openings in a variety of venues such as malls, airports, hospitals, universities and retail stores.

The company counts Walmart and Jamba as its customers and, according to company sources, has served over 50 thousand customer orders.

Blendid isn’t the only robotics company to use crowdfunding in recent years. In fact, it seems like food robotics equity crowdfunding space has become downright crowded .

So why the interest in equity crowdfunding? There are a few reasons:

The first reason is the shine of traditional rewards-based crowdfunding has dimmed in recent years after several high-profile failures like the Coolest Cooler. By offering equity in the company, smaller investors feel they have a stake in the company and may be more forgiving than those who came to see rewards-based crowdfunding platforms as merchandise marketplaces.

Second, equity crowdfunding also gives small companies a way to sidestep traditional venture and strategic investors who a) might have higher oversight requirements or b) ask for too much of a stake than a founder(s) is willing to give up. It also opens up an entirely new pool of funding from small investors who have been shut out of the more traditional venture funding ecosystem.

Finally, robotics is a category that resonates with smaller investors. It’s an easy-to-understand space, and the investment thesis undergirding many of the proposals is largely correct: the food space is ripe for more automation and robotics, so why shouldn’t I put some skin in the game.

Long term, I expect the food robotics equity crowdfunding momentum to continue as smaller investors look for places to put their money outside of traditional investment vehicles. How these investments pay off for these investors is another story worth watching.

After Crowdfunding $2.2M and a Year Delay, Chopbox Asks for More Money

Sometimes, the hardest advice to take is your own. Every time I write about a crowdfunded hardware campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo I include a “buyer beware” disclaimer. These types of projects have a tendency to run into production issues that either severely delay their fulfillment (see: Spinn coffee maker) or result in the product not being fulfilled at all (see: Rite Press).

Despite knowing all that, last September I plunked down $99 (plus $20 for shipping) for the Chopbox, which promised to be a cutting board + timer + sanitizer + scale + knife sharpener all in one. Sure it was a bit gimmicky, but my cutting boards were getting long in the tooth so I figured why not.

I wasn’t the only one who thought the Chopbox was a good idea. The crowdfunding campaign raised more than $2.2 million from nearly 16,000 backers across Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

The original ship date promised by the Yes Company (creators of the Chopbox) was December 2019. Given that I backed it in September of 2019, the three-month turnaround seemed too good to be true. And yet, I proceeded, though knowing in the back of my mind that it would most likely be delayed.

And delayed it was.

In February of 2020, the Yes Company said it had experienced delays in China because of the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic. But in the subsequent months there have been more production delays. Long story short, almost a year after the initial ship date promise, I have yet to receive my Chopbox, and, it looks like neither have most other people.

According to a company update on Kickstarter this week, the Yes Company said it shipped “two batches” (whatever that means) to the U.S. and Europe. In the same breath however, the company said that shipping has gotten more expensive over this past year and it asked backers to cough up more money. In my case, I think they are asking for an extra $30, but it’s hard to tell based on the information they provided.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Yes Company has sold or is selling Chopboxes on the general market at Touch of Modern and on the Yes Company website (though when you try to actually buy it on the Yes website, it returns a message saying “We are not able to accept online payments,” which is… weird for an online transaction). It’s unclear whether these transactions are being fulfilled before crowdfunders get theirs. We reached out to the Yes Company to find out more information.

The comments section of the Chopbox Kickstarter campaign has understandably lit up with disgruntled backers demanding refunds and cries of “scam.”

I can’t go that far, but I’m definitely not giving the Yes Company any more money or back anything they do again. I should have heeded my own advice. Hopefully I won’t get similarly burned by the Bru tea maker I also backed last year and have yet to receive.

New Fees are Just One Issue for Mellow as the Sous-Vide Maker Tries to Stay Afloat

It began with a comment over the weekend, when a Spoon reader told us that Mellow, the connected sous-vide appliance company, had started charging a monthly subscription. Companies charging a fee with their connected gadget is nothing new, but Mellow is now charging $5.99 to its existing owners in order for them to access formerly free features like pre-set cook programs.

But it turns out when you pulled on this thread, new fees were symptomatic of much bigger ongoing issues with Mellow.

In reporting about the new subscription fee, The Verge wrote (emphasis ours):

Late Monday evening, Mellow released a statement on Instagram explaining the justifications for its “premium” plan, citing financial hardships in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and claiming that many potential investors and acquirers interested in the company walked away, and arguing that the servers responsible for the cooker’s smart features cost too much to operate.

The Mellow statement was via an Instagram story, so it disappeared after 24 hours, but The Verge grabbed a screenshot of the post, which described the cost of running the connected service, how the company lost money, how COVID impacted its ability to get investors or be acquired and basically how the subscription was the only way to keep itself going.

The Spoon spoke with a source that has an intimate business relationship with Mellow. This person told us that while people are angered over the new fee, it is the only way to keep the Mellow functioning at all. AWS bills continue to pile up and if they can’t be paid, instead of limited functionality, the Mellow device will be completely bricked.

According to our source, the problem lies in a third-party chip and the way the original Mellow was designed. This chip prevents the company from doing something like releasing the code as open source and letting the community build a workaround. Additionally our source said that there is just one person left at the company, so there aren’t any resources to even do such a technical project.

But this new fee is just part of a larger set of problems that have plagued Mellow. According to our source, the company previously raised $3 million in funding. Crunchbase doesn’t list a specific amount raised, and only lists three undisclosed Seed rounds from Springboard, Techstars, and Hard Gamma Ventures, and a convertible note from Highway1. All of that money is gone, according to our source.

As per the Instagram story, Mellow had been involved in a number of discussions with potential investors, but when COVID hit, all of those discussions evaporated.

We reported in May that Mellow launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to raise $1 million through the SeedInvest platform. The link to that campaign no longer works and Mellow is no longer listed as an offering on the SeedInvest platform. Our source told us that the campaign failed to reach its funding goal.

Mellow had been the beneficiary of crowdfunding its products before. The first generation Mellow ran a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2014, and in November of 2019, the company launched another Kickstarter campaign for the v2 Mellow Duo. The Mellow Duo cost between $149 and $299, depending on the model and when you backed. The Duo campaign was also a success and raised more than $211,000 from 892 backers with an initial ship date of October 2020.

But an update from the company on July 13 on the Duo Kickstarter campaign said that because of pandemic, that ship date has been pushed six months. Though given all the turmoil, who knows if it will make it that long.

Sadly, all of these troubles are nothing new for Mellow. It’s initial v1 product was delayed, it lost its original CEO (and just about everyone else, subsequently), and when the v1 product finally reached the market, a 1 out of 10 review from WIRED labeled the product as “too risky” and all but killed the Mellow before it had a chance to gain any traction. As we reported previously, as part of its equity crowdfunding disclosures, Mellow said that “Over 6,400 Mellow V1 units have been activated, with the average household using it to cook 1.7+ times per week.” Our source said that the number of active users is closer to 2,000.

This whole situation is another stark reminder of the downsides of crowdfunding hardware projects. Making hardware at scale is extremely difficult. It’s also another reminder of the inherent issues when buying a connected gadget. Those gadgets may offer a lot of convenience, but also run the risk of being bricked either by the whim of a company or by its downfall.

Steward is a Crowdfunding Platform for Small, Sustainable Farms

During this pandemic consumers have been trying to shop from local farms more than ever. And yet these farms — small, family-owned operations — are having a tough time scaling up and pivoting to serve increased demand from new sales channels.

One thing that might help is if they had easier access to funding. An online platform called Steward is trying to help sustainable farms attract more capital. Steward lets individuals invest in pre-vetted local farms via its website. The company also recently launched new software to allow farmers to sell directly to consumers and even raise funds for projects, like building a new barn or expanding CSAs.

Dan Miller, the CEO and founder of Steward, told me over the phone recently that he got the idea for his company after he heard from lots of individuals who wanted to support sustainable local food systems, but weren’t sure exactly how. “There were way too many intermediaries,” he said. 

Steward funded its first farm, an urban farm in Detroit, in 2017. Since then they’ve funded 15 more farms with a total of $3 million. Over 50 farms also use Steward’s software for their own fundraising ventures. 

“Funding is hard to come by,” said Miller. “Traditional [investment] sources are focused on big commodity farmers, and sustainable farmers are often dismissed as not serious enterprises.” The reality, he argues, is that if farmers get access to the capital they need they can grow enormously.

On the flip side, it’s also hard for individuals to figure out how to invest in farms. Miller said that the business is “heavily regulated,” and that Steward simplifies the process. He told me that the majority of their investors are individuals who go in for a few hundred to thousand dollars.

Photo courtesy of Steward

Right now, individuals have two ways to invest through Steward. They can either invest in the Steward Farm Trust, which is a portfolio of loans picked by the Steward team. They receive interest payments from the loans of 8 to 10 percent. People can also look through the farms on Steward’s platform and invest individually, but Miller said that’s trickier because it involves regulatory hurdles (read: is probably not for the casual investor).

Steward makes money by charging farmers a 2 percent origination fee for investment, and collecting a 1 percent servicing fee yearly from investors. They also make money from the SaaS side of the business, which costs $95 per month. Thus far Steward is self-funded.

COVID is upending the entire food system and prompting consumers to examine where their food comes from in a way they might not have pre-pandemic. According to Miller, sustainable farms are benefiting from this emphasis on transparency. “We’ve seen boosted sales on all of the farms that we support,” he said.

To adapt to this spike in sales, small farmers are facing new challenges. They need to set up e-commerce sites to fulfill new demand, and figure out how to sell produce now that restaurant sales are down.

“They need capital to up their production,” Miller told me. He hopes that Steward will be able to provide some of that capital to help sustainable farms continue to grow, in COVID and beyond.

Pico, the Mini Indoor Garden that Can Grow Herbs and Tomatoes, Busts Through Kickstarter Goal

With quarantine keeping us all at home, people are growing plants both for mental health and as a food source. But even if the enthusiasm is there, there are still plenty of pitfalls to accidentally kill your plant friends — overwatering, underwatering, not enough light, etc.

For those reasons, plus a growing (ha!) interest in food sovereignty, coronavirus could actually present a real market opportunity for smart gardens; automated indoor grow systems to manage the health of your plants. But, as Mike Wolf noted in his piece last month, one big hurdle standing in smart gardens’ way is their cost. The systems can range in price from hundreds to even thousands of dollars.

That’s where Pico, a new automated indoor garden currently making a splash on Kickstarter, could really distinguish itself. Early Backers can secure a Pico for only $32. The intended MSRP is $45.

When we say Pico made a splash on Kickstarter, we’re not exaggerating: at the time of writing the company has raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter (its initial goal was $10,000). The small self-contained grow system that can be affixed to walls and features an LED light mounted on an adjustable arm, which can be moved up as plants grow. It can also self-water, provided someone fills up its tank once a week.

Like most indoor garden systems, Pico is limited in terms of what plants can grow. The Kickstarter says it can be used for decorative plants, like succulents, as well as to grow herbs and leafy greens. It even claims it can grow cherry tomatoes and chili peppers, though its small size could limit the amount.

Photo: Pico’s grow system, by Altifarm

Pico may be extremely affordable, but it doesn’t have quite the same stramlined user experience as some of the pricier home gardens. For one, Pico has to be plugged in to work. It’s powered with a USB Type-C cable, so it can plug into a phone or computer charger. Pico comes with a 3-meter long cable with magnetic organizer loops to more easily route around kitchen appliances, so that helps. But it still seems like kind of a pain to set up. That said, Pico is small enough to fit pretty much anywhere, and can also be mounted on walls to position it closer to a wall outlet. You can also connect three Picos together at a time and power them with the same charging cable.

The Pico price only includes the device. Users have to add in their own soil and seeds. To be fair, that’s not a huge lift, but it does mean the Pico isn’t a straight plug-and-grow option, like Aerofarm or Click & Grow.

It also isn’t 100 percent automated. Users have to manually turn the LED light on and off to imitate the rise and fall of the sun. They can also purchase a timer to automate the process for an additional cost.

Altifarm, the company behind Pico, has some experience making automated grow systems. They’ve already launched Herbstation, an indoor farm that was also funded by Kickstarter. The company has just concluded fulfillment of Herbstation preorders after a self-admitted “share of delays, mixups, and drama.” Buyer beware.

Photo: Altifarm

As of now, Pico is slated to begin shipping in May/June, though a small disclaimer at the bottom of the campaign notes that that could be delayed due to stay at home orders. Buying a product off a crowdfunding site is always a risk — especially now, when COVID-19 is disrupting manufacturing supply chains across the globe. However, Altifarm states that since Pico is their third global product launch, they’ve learned how to efficiently get a hardware product to market.

Despite the risks, Pico couldn’t be hitting the market at a more opportune time. With COVID nudging consumers to be more aware of where their food comes from — and people consequently gaining an interest in food sovereignty — home gardening is blooming (okay, last plant pun).

Pico’s stellar Kickstarter campaign illustrates just how enthusiastic consumers are about finding ways to easily grow their own food at home. Now we’ll have to see if they can follow through to make all those backers happy home gardeners.

GrapeStars Lets Celebrities Sell Booze to You Through Social Media

Have you ever wanted to buy gin endorsed by Ryan Reynolds? Or a nice bottle of sauvignon blanc curated by Sarah Jessica Parker? Now’s your chance. GrapeStars, the online marketplace for celebrity-endorsed brands of booze, is live to make sure you never have to go without a glass of wine supported by a famous person, even in the time of COVID-19.

Based in Miami, GrapeStars had its soft launch this week. Initially they’ll ship to 45 states in the U.S. The company has plans for a formal launch in mid-May 2020 with a portfolio of 1,495 products from 203 celebrities.

Here’s how it works: consumers can either purchase directly through the GrapeStars app, which currently works on iPhones or Google Play, or they can click on links embedded on celebrity’s social media profiles to be redirected to their GrapeStars store. From there they select their star-supported booze of choice, which is shipped to their door. Cost depends on weight, distance, and timing (e.g. overnight, 2 day, etc), and GrapeStars pockets 15 percent of each sale.

According to an email conversation with a GrapeStars rep, the startup recently closed a seed round, raising $3.7 million with a mix of convertible debentures and equities. The company will launch a Republic Crowdfunding Campaign to raise an additional $1 million sometime in the next few weeks.

This concept is obviously on the sillier side, but GrapeStars may actually hitting the market at an ideal time. Since everything is stressful right now and meditation apps can only do so much, sales of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. rose 55 percent in the week ending March 21, according to Nielsen data. Since bars are no longer to sell you the good stuff, people are turning to grocery stores and e-commerce to get their booze fix. Consequently, online alcohol delivery services like Drizly and Minibar are seeing a huge spike in sales. Wine subscription services, like Winc and Vivino, are also seeing rapid increases in sales and higher ticket sizes.

Plus, since everyone is turning to social media to feel connected amidst social distancing, celebrities may find themselves with a captive audience that’s bored enough to, say, order specialty booze endorsed by their favorite movie star.

Is GrapeStars going to solve any of the very significant challenges that COVID-19 is imposing on the food system? Absolutely not. But is it fun, entertaining, and a relevant service in our new Netflix-fueled normal? You bet.

Small Robot Company Gets £200,000 VC Investment, Surpasses Equity Crowdfunding Goal

Small Robot Company, which makes precision agricultural robots, confirmed today via email that 7percent Ventures has invested £200,000 pounds (~$259,000 USD) in the company and is now Small Robot’s lead investor.

Small Robot is running its equity crowdfunding on CrowdCube, and has raised £2,003,880 ($2,596,000 USD) from 1670 investors so far. What we don’t know right now is whether 7percent’s money is included among that tally, or if it’s a separate investment. We’ve reached out to Small Robot to clarify.

Regardless, Small Robot has far surpassed its initial £700,000 fundraising target, and the campaign still has one day left to attract new investors. Advertising 7percent’s participation could be a way to goose last minute money from those on the fence or considering investing even more.

Small Robot makes autonomous robots for precision farming, and its robotic roster includes Tom, which maps the farm and Dick, which zaps weeds with electricity to kill them. Eventually they’ll add Harry, a no-till drilling robot. The Tom robot is currently in working trials on 20 farms across the UK.

This is the second equity crowdfunding campaign for Small Robot. The company crowdfunded £1.2 million ($1.6 million) in 2018, and has also received £1.4 million ($1.8 million) in non-equity funding from a UK government innovation fund.

When I spoke with Small Robot Company Co-Founder, Sam Watson Jones, last month, he said the company was going the equity crowdfunding route because there weren’t very many European early stage VCs that would fund companies still developing their product. Evidently Watson Jones found one.

As I also noted back in January, Small Robot Company is going to have to bulk up its warchest because there is some well-funded competition in the precision ag robot space. Farmwise raised $14.5 million and French company Naïo raised more than $15 million for their respective robotic weed killers.

But it’s not all just money, and with today’s investment from 7percent, Small Robot Company may also get some VC-backed connections and support that the crowd just can’t offer.

Coronavirus Hits Kickstarter as Projects Run Into or Anticipate Delays

One of the problems that many crowdfunded hardware startups encounter is manufacturing and scaling. That’s because for many startups, it’s their first time working with manufacturers, not to mention working with manufacturers half a world away in China.

And if vastly different time zones and frequent visits to China weren’t tough enough for n00b entrepreneurs, the deadly Coronavirus epidemic is now currently tearing through China. This is creating even more problems for manufacturers as the country implements strict measures to combat the disease’s spread.

The Coronavirus now appears to be impacting projects backed on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms. This came to our attention today when ChopBox, the high-tech cutting board, sent out the following update:

As per the previous update, we confirmed that the first batch of 500 units were to be finished by February 10th, but because of the coronavirus, most factories have been shut down until around February 15th as a precaution only. We have contacted the factory and they cannot confirm the exact day or time they will be allowed to reopen, but we have the rough schedule. It should be around February 20-25th. As soon as they are open again, we will use express shipping for the super fast shipping pledge backers and get your ChopBox to you right away.

It should be noted that ChopBox was already experiencing production issues, and had delayed is shipping once from December to Mid-January. So while there’s never a “good” time for an outbreak, this definitely bad timing for ChopBox.

Over on the BRÜ Kickstarter page, there was an exchange with a backer concerned that the virus might get into the device being made there:

And over on the BEERMKR campaign page, backers are asking questions about how the Coronavirus will impact their device’s shipment:

We reached out to both BRÜ and BEERMKR to see how the virus is impacting their production.

UPDATE: BEERMKR Co-Founder, Aaron Walls emailed us the following statement:

We’re waiting on an update from the factory now. Prior to the virus being so expansive, we were planning on a week delayed start, twice the time to produce parts, and not have our engineers return to China in the month of February, which would also slow things down. Now that the virus is a pandemic and the Chinese government shutting down transportation and large scale preventing the movement of people, there is a possibility that there won’t be any workers present in Shenzhen to begin work at all. I’m hoping to get some sort of a response from our factory by the end of the week, so I can follow up with more details then.

Whether or not people have to wait to brew their own beer, make a single cup of tea, or weigh their vegetables as they chop them is the very least of the problems caused by the Coronavirus.

But it is emblematic of our increasingly connected world and another reason those creating Kickstarter hardware campaigns need to make sure they raise enough money to weather unexpected crises, and be as transparent with backers as possible.

Delays of MoJoe’s Travel Coffee Brewer Leaves Backers Feeling Cold

After posting a video interview with MoJoe Brewing last night about the company’s travel coffee brewer, we received a tip from a reader that the track record for the product is actually not so hot.

What didn’t come up in my interview with MoJoe was that the product was actually crowdfunded on Kickstarter. And like so many crowd-backed products we’ve covered, the MoJoe is late on delivering to its backers. Like, really late: four years at this point.

As a refresher, the MoJoe Brewer is a travel mug that you plug into a wall outlet or a car port to heat water, brew and enjoy coffee. According to the MoJoe Kickstarter campaign page, early backers could pick one up with a $79 pledge and expect to receive their brewer in May of 2016.

MoJoe raised $85,860 from 728 backers on Kickstarter. The company was also part of the 2019 cohort of the Accelerate Baltimore program, which says it offers a 13-week program along with $25,000 in seed funding.

Despite this, the MoJoe still hasn’t shipped. In my video interview, MoJoe Brewing Founder and CEO Joseph Hyman said that the company expected to ship in the second half of this year. But even that doesn’t seem to be a lock, with money still being an issue. In a follow up Linkedin exchange, Hyman wrote to me saying:

We have raised enough to get through plastic mold manufacturing, but need to close the round to get through product manufacturing and delivery.

Several issues pushed production: first some usability designs, then failed manufacturing molds, and then finally tariffs caused us to have to change manufacturers.

The round he’s referring to is a $500,000 seed round the company is currently trying to close. It sounds like if the round doesn’t close, the MoJoe might not ever make it to market. And even if the company does close a seed round, who knows what problems might arise in the move to mass production that could cost even more time and money?

All of the delays and the precarious position MoJoe now finds itself in has backers who plunked down money understandably upset. Part of their ire may have been the fact that MoJoe has not updated its Kickstarter campaign page since Jan. 2019. Our tipster told me that direct emails sent to the company have gone unanswered.

Backers will forgive a lot if the company running the campaign is transparent and honest, but a lack of communication brings distrust and breeds conspiracy theories. Just ask they guy behind the Rite Press.

Perhaps MoJoe is catching on. On its website (which still lists 2019 as the ship date), MoJoe posted an update this month on its corporate blog stating:

We’re making big changes in order to ramp up communication and operations around product delivery; we’re solidifying partnerships to make sure our manufacturing and product rollout run smoothly

MoJoe joins a long list of companies that discovered making crowdfunded hardware is hard. Hopefully MoJoe can right its ship and deliver the morning joe to to all of its backers.

Two Trends to Watch Out for in 2020: Pop-Ups and Equity Crowdfunding

Based on the volume of digital ink I devoted in 2019 to cashierless checkout and robot-related startups, you’d think that I would pick those sectors as trends to watch in 2020.

While I think those segments will continue to grow steadily over the coming months, the two trends I’m most fascinated by are the ones I actually wrote very little about this year. If you’re looking for a couple of big, juicy trends I think you should pay attention to, you should explore semi-permanent pop-ups and equity crowdfunding.

Pop-up stores have been around for a while, but there are a number of startups looking to capitalize on their small footprint and easy setup to create new retail experiences. AiFi creates nano-stores are small, self-contained shipping container-like boxes that house an operation like a convenience store. These stores are cashierless (like Amazon Go), so customers can walk in, grab what they want and go.

Zippin is another company building out cashierless retail experiences, though it’s “Zippin Cube” is more customizable. The Zippin Cube is modular, so it can fit into existing, odd-shaped real estate. The Cubes can also hold coolers and come pre-wired, so they can be assembled and up and running in as little as three weeks.

Both Zippin and AiFi allow retail brands to quickly, easily and inexpensively set up pop-up stores in sporting venues, office lobbies or even music festivals. Retailers can then extend their brand into new venues without expensive and permanent build out. Think: a mini-Safeway at the base of your office building or a 7-11 at Coachella.

The ability to cheaply squirrel these stores into the nooks and crannies of high-volume but unused space will entice retailers to try them out next year.

Speaking of enticing, I expect startups will sing their siren song next year to entice everyday people to pony up through equity fundraising. Unlike the traditional product crowdfunding on Kickstarter, equity crowdfunding offers investors real equity in the companies they back.

GoSun, GOffee (unrelated “Gos” there) and Miso Robotics all launched equity crowdfunding campaigns this year. GoSun has raised $345,000 with 25 days left in its campaign. GOffee raised $1.07 million, and Miso Robotics aims to equity crowdfund a whopping $30 million.

This is actually GoSun’s second round of equity crowdfunding. The company raised $500,000 in seed money from the crowd in 2017. I spoke with GoSun CEO Patrick Sherwin earlier this year about the reason for crowdfunding and he told me:

“Traditional VC will breathe down your neck,” Sherwin said, “And drive everything towards more profit. This gives us more flexibility and keeps us in charge.”

Greater control over their own destiny is an attractive proposition for startups, and equity crowdfunding also has the benefit of giving companies that aren’t located in major VC hubs access to capital.

There are still plenty of SEC hurdles that a company must go through when equity crowdfunding, but I imagine we’ll see a lot more companies go that route to grow the way they want to.

COFFEEJACK, the Handheld Espresso Maker, Crowdfunds $1.1M on Kickstarter

Last week on The Spoon Editorial podcast, Head Editor Chris Albrecht discussed his recent look back at food- and drink-related crowdfunding successes and failures of 2019. He noted that some of the biggest success stories from the year were around gadgets geared towards two beverages: beer and coffee.

When it comes to the COFFEEJACK, that analysis seems accurate. The product, from Bristol, UK-based company HRIBARCAIN, launched a $13,081 Kickstarter for its single-serve portable espresso maker back in October. As of this writing, the campaign has raised over $1,093,000.

The COFFEEJACK is a handheld device that brews a single serving of espresso directly into your cup. Put finely-ground coffee beans in the base, fill it with hot water, and press the pump a few times to get a DIY espresso.

COFFEEJACK’s co-founders Ashley Hribar-Green and Matthew Cain (Get it? HRIBARCAIN!) met when they were engineers working on the cordless vacuum at tech company Dyson. They began developing an idea for an affordable portable espresso machine three years ago. Almost 400 prototypes later, they filed a patent on the current COFFEEJACK device, which creates high-pressure coffee extraction without the use of pods, filters or electricity.

As a one-time barista, I know that making espresso is far more difficult than, say, brewing up some joe in a french press. The key is to apply the exact right amount of pressure on the beans to extract all of the flavors. Cain told me that most espresso makers rely on air to create said pressure, which is why they’re often large and heavy. COFFEEJACK, however, relies on hydraulics to exert the necessary pressure, which requires far less space. That’s how the engineers came to develop a portable espresso maker small enough to hold in your hand, but forceful enough to extract an optimal shot.

Traditional espresso makers are not just unwieldy — they’re also expensive. An average home espresso maker — a real espresso maker, not the stovetop kind which essentially makes concentrated brewed coffee — will set you back around $500. By contrast, prospective backers can pre-order a COFFEEJACK for £70 ( around $91 USD). That’s on par with other handheld espresso makers on the market, though COFFEJACK’s founders told me their machine’s hydraulic extraction made it stand out from the rest.

Hribar-Green and Cain haven’t decided how much the device will cost once it hits the market. They expect to sell the COFFEEJACK both through traditional brick and mortar retail partners and online through their website. 

If you missed out on the COFFEEJACK Kickstarter campaign but really want a handheld espresso maker, don’t panic. HRIBARCAIN plans to keep the crowdfunding a-rollin’ with a six-month IndieGoGo campaign, launching soon.

The COFFEEJACK is set to ship in May of 2020. As always with crowdfunded hardware, there’s no way to guarantee that you’ll actually get your hands on the thing you forked over money for. However, HRIBARCAIN already has two successful Kickstarter campaigns under their belt, for a magnetically controlled pen and pencil, both of which are still shipping today. So the pair clearly has at least some experience with the hardware crowdfunding world. 

One thing I personally like about the COFFEEJACK is how it cuts down on coffee waste. Keurig and Nespresso machines rely on tons of disposable pods to make espresso. While some of those pods can technically be recycled, they usually end up in landfills. COFFEEJACK isn’t reliant on pods or even filters, so it’s relatively waste-free.

HRIBARCAIN is based in the U.K., but they plan to ship COFFEEJACK globally. Down the road, Cain told me they would probably focus on the U.S., since Americans have, in his words, a “real appreciation for gadgets and great coffee.”

At least when it comes to crowdfunding projects, he’s got a point.