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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Fellow Products

Fellow, Maker of Specialty Coffee Gear, Raises $30 Million Series B

Fellow, a maker of specialty coffee gear, announced today they had raised $30 million via a Series B funding round led by Nextworld Evergreen.

The San Francisco-based company, which has made a name for itself with its somewhat pricey design-forward coffee-making gear, was started by founder and CEO Jake Miller in his dorm room at Stanford where he began work on a coffee steeper that raised close to $200 thousand on Kickstarter.

Since those early days, Miller and his team have launched a family of coffee and tea gear, ranging from French presses to kettles to insulated coffee mugs. The company, which has gained a following among baristas and celebrities for its sleekly designed Stagg EKG kettles (and also influenced a dozen or more knockoffs), also sells coffee beans via its website and has opened a flagship retail store in San Francisco.

Fellow CEO Jake Miller

I first connected with Miller in 2017 when he showed off the Stagg Kettle and pitched his company at the Smart Kitchen Summit. I sat down with him yesterday to talk about his company and plans moving forward.

The home coffee gear market has a rough space for some startups, yet Fellow has been able to grow. Why do you think you’ve had success while others have struggled or gone out of business?

I do think a big part of our success was our “failure” to raise venture capital back in 2013. With limited cash, we had to be incredibly thoughtful about our product roadmap. Not only did we have to understand the appeal and market size of our products, but we had to be very honest with ourselves about the likelihood of us actually delivering a product that customers would love.

For example, although a tiny market, we had high confidence in our ability to launch the best pour-over kettle in the world with a small team and limited resources. In 2013, if someone would have handed us $5 million I think there is a good chance we would have bit off too much and wouldn’t have been able to deliver. It’s exciting to sit here today with the experience of the past 9 years and now the confidence/ability to deliver on the big stuff moving forward. 

What do you plan on using the funding for?

With the capital from the fund raise, we are going to build the team out further so we can run even faster in product development, coffee, and major distribution expansion, including international and our Fellow-owned retail stores. Our second store in Venice, CA opens in August.

The consumer hardware space has changed pretty dramatically since you launched almost 10 years ago, and crowdfunding is one of the aspects that has gotten harder (due to lots of high-profile failures). Would you crowdfund today if you were starting a company or take a different path?

I’m incredibly thankful to the thousands of backers who have supported Fellow through multiple products. The connections we’ve made with our early supporters is priceless. So yes, I think if done right, with the right intentions and expectations, I would absolutely use crowdfunding for a new company today. And, who knows, maybe Fellow goes back to crowdfunding for one of our future products! Even though we don’t need the cash for development today, the insights and feedback we get from our backers is essential to our success.

When you started designing your first product while still at Stanford, did you think you’d be building a consumer products brand long-term?

From day one, my goal was to launch a brand that had real permanence. I often talk internally about my dream of building a 100-year company. So, the desire was there. However, when I think back to 2013 at Stanford sitting in the Launchpad class at the d.School, my big dream was to have 10 employees who were passionate about product design. Now, all of the Kardashians have a Fellow Stagg EKG and it’s also being used by world champion brewers. Fellow today is far more than I ever imagined, but what is exciting is that I truly believe we are just getting started. 

Do you see Fellow expanding beyond coffee/tea hardware in the future?

At some point, yes. But, not today. There is still so much more our customers are asking us to do within coffee. However, at some point in time our customers will ask us to move into other categories in the kitchen. We build beautifully functional tools for the home barista today, and we’re excited to build beautifully functional tools for other passions in the kitchen in the future.

You were a Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase finalist in 2017.  Do you have any memories from that experience you can share?

Yes! I remember pitching on stage alongside so many other great entrepreneurs. That was a real treat for me. Additionally, I remember seeing the other brands and products at the event and feeling inspired. Talking to other founders at SKS helped me to internalize the value that technology can create in the kitchen. 

Retail Apocalypse? Not If You’re A Kitchen Tech Startup

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are live product demos or in-store education classes worth?

Apparently a lot – at least that’s the thinking of a few kitchen startups in the Bay area opening their own experiential retail storefronts where consumers can get their hands on products and try them out.

Over the past few months, I’ve spotted three new retail storefronts that have opened or are about to open in the Bay Area. If you’re like me, you might be wondering what’s going on here? After all, running a brick and mortar storefront isn’t cheap and runs counter to the current trend where, by and large, companies are going all-in on digital futures.

My guess is because these products offer new approaches to age-old activities like cooking and brewing coffee, they could benefit from a little up-front explanation. And like New York City, influencer-heavy San Francisco is often seen as a logical place to open future-forward retail concepts in order to get the word out and get feedback on new products.

So which connected kitchen brands are leaping into retail? Here is what I’ve found on each:

Fellow Store and Playground

Coffee being poured at Fellow Playground

The first of these retail spots to open is from Fellow Products, the company behind the Stagg EKG kettle. Last fall, Fellow launched a showroom in downtown San Francisco called the Fellow Store and Playground to feature their products. The space, which looks like the love child of a Starbucks and Apple store, is less about just moving kettles as it is about engaging with folks in influencer-heavy San Francisco around the company’s products.

“We didn’t open a store to sell you a kettle,” Fellow Products CEO Jake Miller told Sprudge about their new store.  “We opened a store to teach you how to use it.”

To accomplish that, Fellow is offering brew guides, classes, interactive displays and even scheduling a series of evening events in the space.

Anova Kitchen

Anova Kitchen

Last fall, a sign went up on a window located in downtown San Francisco’s Howard Street promising a new store called “Anova Kitchen”. The new storefront, which had a “Coming Soon” on the window, is located on the bottom floor of the company’s new headquarters.

The intention for the space is similar to that of Fellow Products space: demo, sell some product, etc. Last fall, an Anova spokesperson told me they not only had plans to show off their products, but they also planned to feature some from their new parent company, Electrolux (who knows – maybe they’ll even have robot vacuum cleaners).

Anova Kitchen is supposed to open some time this spring.

Brava Home

Brava Home retail store

Finally, the latest kitchen tech startup looking to open up a retail spot is the still somewhat stealth Brava Home. The smart oven startup, which we’ve covered pretty extensively at The Spoon, looks like it’s about to part the velvet curtain and tell the world a little more about itself and, apparently, part of that strategy is a retail storefront.

Spotted at the Stanford shopping mall in Palo Alto, the new store features the tagline “Make Home Your Favorite Place to Eat.” It also has a URL on the window – bravapaloalto.com – which redirects to Brava Home’s site where they describe the retail storefront as a ‘showroom.’

I’ve confirmed with Brava that the store will open this summer.

Retail Apocalypse or Connected Kitchen Revival?

While these new storefronts seem to run counter to the current line of thinking that we’re in the midst of a brick and mortar apocalypse, big tech brands like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have shown the value of physical retail as a way to showcase new technologies and approaches to old behaviors. Others, like B8ta, have found traction with their hands-on IoT-driven showroom concept.

Still, running retail stores are expensive, and as the high-profile implosion of experiential kitchen retailer Pirch has shown, often it’s hard to convert demos and in-store education to actual sales. While this batch of kitchen startups are much more modest and don’t involve ten of thousands of feet of expensive Manhattan real estate, it’s still too early to tell if the efforts will ultimately result in significant upticks for their brands.

But, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase, people do love getting their hands on new cooking products and trying them out for themselves. Whether it’s a coffee robot, 3D food printer or a new type of oven, there’s nothing like actually seeing it in action.

We’ll have to see if these new retail storefronts bear fruit long term. For his part, Fellow Product’s Miller is optimistic and hasn’t ruled out expanding in the future. In an email, he told me, “We exist to help people brew great coffee through beautifully functional design, so anything we do, including retail, needs to support our mission. Although I don’t see a future where Fellow operates hundreds of stores, I can imagine extending our retail presence to select cities.”