BERLIN, Germany – German coffee start-up Bonaverde has successfully secured over £900,000 in funding through its equity crowdfunding on Seedrs. The initiative was launched last month and quickly raised its initial £750,000 funding target. Bonaverde revealed more details about its growth and development:
“Bonaverde isn’t just disrupting one the world’s largest industries. We’re reinventing it. Our roast-grind-brew coffee machine transforms green beans into delicious coffee with the touch of the button.
Coffee beans, currently a commodity, become a consumable, allowing us to disintermediate the world’s second-most traded commodity.
Backed by respected Series A investors and with an infrastructure designed to scale, we’re positioning ourselves to lead the way to a better coffee industry, bringing fresher coffee to consumers and fairer trade to farmers.”
Speaking about the Seedrs success, Bonaverde founder and CEO, Hans Stier, stated:
“We’re certainly celebrating here. Crowdfunding has always been a part of our DNA as a company. It’s inspiring not only to meet our goal, but also to see that the grassroots, crowd-powered ethos of the Coffee Changer movement is still alive and well.”
Bonaverde previously raised $681,461 from 2,254 backers on Kickstarter and almost $125,000 on Indiegogo for its roast-grind-brew coffee machine. It also raised 1.3 million euros through SeedMatch. Although it was a success, the company was met with criticism from backers when it decided to change the design post crowdfunding campaigns. This left the project to become delayed. Following the design update, one of the backers decided to compiled list of backers who had expressed their displeasure with the project. More than 300 names made their way on the list. Nearly four years after securing the funding, Bonaverde revealed the coffee machines have finally shipped. But some backers have already moved on and wished for their contributions to be refunded.
Funding from the Seedrs campaign will go towards the company’s larger mission, building a connected direct-trade coffee ecosystem.
Samantha Hurst
