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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

molecular coffee

Atomo Raises $40 Million To Scale Its Beanless, Upcycled Coffee

Today Seattle-based Atomo announced it had raised $40 million in Series A funding to scale production of its beanless coffee, according to an announcement sent to The Spoon.

When the company’s founders made the rounds in 2019, they pitched Atomo as the first ‘molecular’ coffee company. They had just emerged from the company’s chief scientist’s garage with a prototype of a ready-to-drink coffee made from upcycled ingredients, and eventually launched a Kickstarter with plans to make a ground coffee substitute that, when brewed, tasted and caffeinated like coffee.

The company eventually shifted its focus to developing pre-brewed products and started shipping small batches of its canned cold brew made from upcycled date seeds as well as grapes, chicory, and caffeine from tea. According to the company, they are still working on developing grounds product to allow customers to brew their own beanless coffee at home.

With today’s news, the company’s messaging is firmly centered around making “beanless” coffee crafted from upcycled ingredients. The shift away from ‘molecular’ as the primary consumer-facing descriptor makes sense given how consumers want cleaner ingredient lists, and terms like ‘beanless’ and ‘upcycled’ are less intimidating than more science-forward words like ‘molecular’ or ‘synthetic’ (which can connote non-natural ingredients).

No matter the messaging, the company’s focus has always been to create a coffee alternative that tasted like coffee but is made from more sustainable (and less challenged) plant-based ingredients. With Series A funding from S2G Ventures, AgFunder, and Horizons Ventures, the company has the resources to scale its manufacturing, invest in R&D and officially launch its consumer cold brew product.

Compound Foods Raises $4.5M to Make Synthetic Coffee

Coffee, without the bean, is what startup Compound Foods promises, and the company just raised $4.5 to help make that goal a reality. TechCrunch was first to report today that Compound has raised $4.5 million in Seed funding from investors including Lowercarbon Capital, SVLC, Humboldt Fund, Collaborative Fund, Maple VC, Petri Bio and angel investors. This brings the total amount raised by the startup to $5.3 million.

Instead of growing and harvesting coffee beans, Compound uses synthetic biology to recreate “coffee” on the molecular level. Compound Food Founder and CEO, Maricel Saenz, didn’t provide much detail to TechCrunch as to how the company re-creates coffee, but did they use sustainable ingredients and far less than the 140 liters of water it takes to grow one cup of joe.

Compound isn’t the only company using such synthetic techniques to recreate particular food and drinks. Seattle-based Atomo is also in the molecular coffee biz, making its synthetic java out of upcycled vegan ingredients. Atomo introduced a ready-to-drink cold brew canned coffee last year. Endless West makes molecular whiskey. And Climax Foods uses data and plant-based ingredients to re-create cheese.

Though it’s rather grim to think about, as the pandemic and climate change highlight how fragile our agricultural and supply chain logistics are, there is a real opportunity for synthetic food and beverage makers to grow. These companies can recreate foods we know and love with fewer land and water resources. Additionally, because these foods are manufactured in facilities and not grown outdoors, they aren’t reliant on growing seasons and are less susceptible to catastrophic weather conditions.

Of course the most important factor for any synthetic food and drink company is taste. If the finished product doesn’t taste good, all the molecules in the world won’t convince people to buy it.

Atomo Raises $9M in Seed Funding for its Molecular Coffee

Atomo, the Seattle startup that re-creates coffee on a molecular level, announced today that it has raised a $9 million in seed funding from S2G Ventures, AgFunder, Bessemer Venture Partners and existing investor Horizons Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by Atomo to $11.6 million.

While Atomo’s molecular coffee was started in a lab, it certainly isn’t lab-made coffee. The company’s formula uses a combination of upcycled (vegan) ingredients that go through various biochemical and thermal processes to recreate the look, taste, smell and mouthfeel of coffee. The result, according to Atomo, is a smoother coffee that is less bitter.

In addition to the funding itself is what the funding will go towards. Atomo is building out a pilot production facility in Seattle that when opened in 2021 will be capable of producing thousands of servings of its coffee per day.

There are three phases on Atomo’s roadmap. The first phase, which the new facility will be producing, is a concentrate that will be used in ready-to-drink cans of Atomo cold brew coffee . The second phase involves using the concentrate as well as a grounds product in something like a Keurig style cup. The final phase will be using 3D printing to create an Atomo “bean” that could be used in grinders.

Atomo isn’t the only company looking to recreate drinks on a molecular level. Endless West makes whiskey, wines and sake spirits by deconstructing the originals and reassembling them.

The coffee industry is getting pinched from both ends during this pandemic. The virus is impacting the labor force in places like Brazil from being able to pick beans, and it is causing shut downs of cafes, which are big buyers of coffee. Just as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat could potentially bring stability to production of (plant-based) “meat” that avoids the wild swings of pandemics, the Atomo’s production capablities could potentially do the same for coffee.

We’ll have to see what the company brews up next.

Atomo Raises $2.6 Million for its Molecular Coffee Without the Bean

Atomo announced today that it has raised $2.6 million in seed funding to further develop its molecular coffee that is made without beans. Horizons Ventures, which was an early investor in both Impossible Foods and Perfect Day, provided the entire round.

We covered Atomo when it launched its Kickstarter campaign back in February of this year, explaining the company’s pitch:

Atomo’s so-called “molecular coffee” is made by reverse engineering the flavor and aroma compounds [the] in coffee bean to make a substance that, when brewed, tastes and caffeinates like java. It’s made with natural ingredients and can be brewed one-to-one for coffee in French presses, refillable K-cups, pour-overs, etc.

The end result, Atomo says, is a less bitter, more sustainable cup o’ joe.

Considering the amount of coffee consumed around the world, the environmental pressures around meeting that rising demand and the fact that Atomo blew past its initial Kickstarter goal of $10,000 to crowdfund more than $25,000, it’s no shocker that the company could raise a seed round. Plus, well, molecular coffee is just cool.

Horizons Ventures seems to be the perfect partner for Atomo, as the VC firm has backed some other high-profile future food tech startups such as Impossible, which has been blowing up thanks in part to Burger King’s Impossible Whopper and an impending move into retail. While Perfect Day is just getting off the ground in the market, we tasted its early flora-based “ice cream” and found it to be pretty awesome.

It’s a safe bet that this won’t be the last time we write about Atomo raising money, as the company has ambitious goals for its business. In addition to scaling up development, it plans to be a direct-to-consumer product, launching its own brand via Amazon before selling through retail channels at a price that’s on-par with specialty coffee. That will require plenty of capital, and presumably caffeine-powered days of hard work.