Coffee technology company Morning recently closed its pre-Series A financing round for $ 1.27 million led by zVentures, Razer’s corporate arm.
Other prominent investors are Singapore’s F&B Group, The Lo & Behold Group, as well as the founders of the award-winning Zopim chat widget, acquired by Zendesk.
According to the company, this new injection of funds will be intended to strengthen its international expansion.
“We are very excited to have Razer on board. Both Morning and Razer share a vision for the use of technology to enable and elevate experiences and a deep respect for sustainability and the environment. We strive to draw on Razer’s experience in hardware and technology to refine and refine the Morning machine and ecosystem for our customers, ”said Leon Foo, co-founder of Morning.
“ZVentures identifies start-up startups that add value to the Razer ecosystem and help feed them into brands that our customers will appreciate. Coffee is a big part of our daily lives and we believe that Morning raises the bar to appreciate coffee at home through the strategic application of technology, ”added Cho Weihao, Razer’s chief investment officer.
A successful Kickstarter project
Morning was founded by Leon Foo and Andre Chanco in 2018.
Before Morning, Foo is already and is a veteran of the coffee industry running his own coffee empire. He is the man behind cafes like Chye Seng Huat Hardware and Papa Palheta, and his company also purges, roasts and distributes coffee in Singapore and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Chanco began his journey with coffee by learning the ropes from Pope Palheta. He returned to Manila in 2013 to open a pioneering specialty roaster called Yardstick Coffee.
The duo wanted to focus on the landscape of coffee capsules to show that coexistence and quality can coexist.
They continued to launch an online marketplace with coffee capsules from the world’s most famous specialty coffee roasters.
Demand from the coffee capsule market is expected to grow beyond US $ 41 billion by 2021. Alongside a boom in craft coffee, we realized that specialty coffee roasters are increasingly putting their coffees in capsules.
While roasters typically specialize in selling beans in cafes in a B2B form, capsules (which follow a B2C retail model) are a very different market. It can be a logistical challenge for coffee lovers to locate and purchase these elusive capsules. So we saw the opportunity to create Morning Marketplace to add capsules in one place.
– Andre Chanco, co-founder of Morning
Foo added that the capsules are also much easier to work with compared to whole coffee. They travel better, have a much longer lifespan, and also allow toasters to have control over parameters such as crushing size and weight.
Finally, they created the Morning Machine, which is a machine that specializes in coffee capsules that uses precision brewing technology and IoT functions to elevate the home brewing experience.
This means that associated toasters can easily set accurate recipes and processing proportions.
Morning Machine was first introduced to Kickstarter last year, which quickly achieved its fundraising goals in 48 hours.
It subsequently sold its first production of 1,000 units within six months and has amassed 1,300 more units in subsequent orders for its second production which arrived in August.
In addition, they have also secured distributors in countries such as Hong Kong, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Future plans for the morning
The founders said their long-term vision for Morning is to become the benchmark brand for the manufacture of all homemade coffee.
“Whether it’s to buy the latest coffees and accessories or to learn how to make a better coffee at home, Morning should be the trusted brand or resource.”
They also plan to develop additional peripherals or hardware to complement the Morning ecosystem, as well as existing users and toasters.
They also seek to bolster their curated selection of coffees and toasts at the Morning Marketplace and explore collaborations with larger brands and hospitality brands.
Ultimately, they also want to venture into retail distribution around the world.
Featured Image Credit: Morning
