"Coffee Unicorn" re-financing, what does the blue bottle give us?

The blue bottle, which makes boutique coffee, is one step closer to subverting Starbucks: a new round of financing is under way.

So far, Blue bottle Coffee, one of the most qualified coffee brands to compete with Starbucks, has raised about $120 million.

Why can blue bottle be favored frequently in an industry that is not favored by capital?

Blue bottle coffee refinancing, the amount is close to round C.

According to people familiar with the matter, Blue bottle is currently in the process of raising the next round of financing, just over a year after the $75 million C round it completed last summer.

Although the exact amount of this round of financing is not yet known, given the strong enthusiasm of Silicon Valley investors for the coffee industry, this round of financing is expected to be close to the amount of round C financing.

So far, Blue Bottle Coffee has raised about $120 million and opened 26 stores in the New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo areas.

Why is the vision of capital always inclined to this blue bottle?

Remarks Blue bottle Coffee financing Review:

In 2012.10, Blue bottle Coffee received US $2000 in round A financing.

In 2014.01, Blue bottle Coffee received $2570 in round B financing.

In 2015.06, Blue bottle Coffee received $7500 in round C financing.

2016.09, blue bottle coffee D-round financing is in progress, the amount is close to round C

Curiosity: how to make a coffee unicorn?

Unlike Starbucks, which is valued at $80 billion, Blue bottle Coffee is the product of the "third wave of coffee" and is a boutique coffee brand in the United States.

It relies on intensive cultivation of coffee beans and competes with Starbucks coffee machines with the barista's hands.

Blue bottle Coffee was founded in 2002 and headquartered in California. It selects high-quality organic certified coffee beans, using traditional planting methods, no pesticide residues.

The store is equipped with Italian style, hand flushing, siphon and ice droplets, and only choose fresh coffee beans baked within 48 hours, not fast food products, take the quality boutique route.

In addition to the coffee produced on the spot in the store, Blue bottle Coffee also offers sales of New Orleans-style iced coffee, cold coffee and coffee beans packaged in milk boxes.

Blue bottle coffee provides various forms of sales service.

Starbucks is already so large that it naturally faces the supervision of many investors to ensure that it meets their expectations. Gradually, they may exert pressure on aspects such as the selection and purchase of coffee beans, which is the advantage of blue bottle coffee.

Therefore, if we follow this trend, Blue bottle Coffee will be more likely to form a more competitive supply chain because of its high quality beans.

At the same time, to compete with Starbucks, Blue bottle Coffee must expand its retail business in the international market.

Although Blue bottle Coffee has established its brand status as boutique coffee, it is still difficult to move beyond these consumer areas that have a special complex for coffee to other consumers. After all, in some areas, coffee does not represent quality and pursuit like wine or food.

Reveal the secret: what on earth does capital like?

Blue bottle coffee is a special case in the capital market. Even in the foreign coffee market, there are only a handful of brands that can get large amounts of financing.

In China, although there is a 70 billion market, capital is almost dismissive of the coffee industry.

To investigate the reasons, the main points revealed by many capitalists in the direction of "Ka Men" are as follows:

1. There are no unicorn coffee brands.

2. Deviate from the commercial track

3. Lack of pioneering team

4. Non-standard management

5. The scale of the industry is not large enough and there are many data bubbles.

The blue bottle coffee, which has a great sense of design, is very different from Starbucks, and has great market imagination, is undoubtedly the "unicorn" in the coffee market in recent years, and is the "sexy target" in the eyes of the capital side.

Ca sir said

In fact, in the United States, the more representative boutique coffee brands than Blue bottle coffee are: StumpTown (Tree Pier City), Counter Culture (counter-culture) and Intelligentsia (intellectuals).

In terms of commercialization, these "three represents" are more conservative, purer and, to some extent, more recognized by coffee geeks.

However, what goes international is the blue bottle of coffee. It relies on commercial capital to do large-scale, become the representative of international boutique coffee, but also become the only potential to challenge Starbucks boutique coffee brand.

Why has "Ka Men" been calling for coffee operators to jump out of technology and do business and scale? It's just a joke to compete with Starbucks with a store.

Only on a large scale, the front-end brand has the radiation power, the intermediate system has the control power, and the upstream supply chain has the integration power.

So, you have the nerve to mention Starbucks.