There may be something to this instant coffee thing. In a press release today, Sudden Coffee—the instant coffee brand co-founded by two-time Finnish Barista Champion Kalle Freese—announced their partnership with Bay Area venture capital firm CRV to the tune of a $2,700,000 investment. You can dehydrate a lot of coffee that many zeros.
Along with funds from CRV, Sudden Coffee has “received further investment from Founder Collective, Lifeline Ventures, and a group of angel investors who collectively helped us get off the ground in 2015.” According to the press release, this new round of investment will go to “further [building] out [their] vision of delivering you great coffee coupled with a tailored, tech-enabled experience that helps bring your favorite parts of the cafe to your door.”
To put it in more concrete terms, take Sudden’s 2016 Holiday Stocking Stuffer, their gift set containing eight servings of their Ethiopia Biftu Gudina roasted by 49th Parallel, a holiday card, and a tree ornament. Last year’s Holiday Stocking Stuffer sold out in five minutes. But this new funding is the sort of thing that helps them increase the gift set’s capacity to 1,000 units this year in hopes of meeting the overwhelming demand.
The success of Sudden Coffee and its ilk—Blue Bottle’s new pre-ground coffee packs and Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood’s coffee pods—is a reminder that there is a market for convenience in the world of high quality coffee. And with this new round of investment, expect that market to grow even larger.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
