Investor proposal
Be part of a company that already has a proven track record for both vending machine manufacturing and sales, while revolutionizing the beverage and beverage dispensing industry.
- Healthy fast food = strong consumer trend
- Large volumes in each machine + global market = large income opportunities
- Good cashflow from leasing
- Two global patents pending
- No intermediaries + premium prices = 23 % profit margin
Idea
The problem this product solves
Astrid Friborg got an idea: “Most people love smoothies, there is a global market need. But it must be costful to have a juicebar, imagine the rent and staff costs… not to mention the amount of wasted old fruits!” Her idea was: to create a machine that serve smoothies, identical to the luxurious smoothies at a juicebar or café! It would always hold the same high quality of flavours and hygiene, and people would never have to queue… and with a payment function, no staff is needed! She let down a research job offer from Stanford University to start this…
How the product solves it
The uniquity lies in the automatic dispensing of chilled drinks, coupled to a smart payment function.
We will also do white label-production for other beverage companies that want their own drinks and logo.
Gallery
Product
Product features
Berries by Astrid has developed a unique beverage machine with automatic dispensing of chilled drinks, coupled to a smart payment function. The prize-winning machine has an innovative and exclusive design with a touch screen, mobile, NFC or credit card payment, and a chilled, hygienic solution for automatic serving of smoothie in three flavours, directly into a cup.
The smoothie is a super premium product made of 50% yoghurt and 50% fruit&berries, without additives. The shelf life is unique: two weeks refrigerated. The recipes are made by our founder the cancer scientist Dr Astrid Friborg with team, with health in focus.
Product use cases
The machine will be placed where people are on-the-move, such as train stations, shopping malls, airports, hotels etc.
The first machine is placed at Coor Service Management where people purchase daily from it. Already 200 persons bought from it and it’s ticking…
Arlanda and Malmö Airports, and Sweden’s trendiest shopping mall Täby Centrum are among those waiting for their machines to be delivered. They are now in production! We are close to signing contract with more offices, hotel chains, and more shopping malls etc.
Each machine is prognosed to generate at least 15,000 EUR in revenues yearly.
Market
Target Market
The trend of natural, additive-free food and lifestyle food is now established, conclude trend analytics at United Mind. Our primary target group is women with an active, conscious lifestyle. But of course, we welcome everyone who loves smoothies.
Some facts:
- Global sales of smoothie estimated to 6,3 billion EUR during 2015 (bottled, cups aren’t even counted!)
- There are 19 million vending machines world-wide
- Sales in vending machines (in USA only): 28 billion EUR
- Selecta notice a clear increase of purchases of healthy products in their vending machines
Competitive landscape
There are no direct competitors – no smoothie vending machines – but smoothies can be purchased at:
- Bottled smoothies: Innocent, Froosh, Brämhults
- Juicebars: Blueberry Lifestyle, Naked Juicebar, Joe & the Juice, Squeezed Up
- Vending machines: Selecta
Unique differentiator from competitors
Because we offer an intelligent hygienic distribution solution with patent pending, applicable to also other cold drinks, in a global arena, there is a billion dollar potential in our unique solution. We have already sold thousands of smoothies and have a proof of concept – this in the supply chain as well as in the customer demand.
Business Model
Company revenue streams
We will have revenues from both customers and consumers.
- Rent-based revenues. The customer (e.g. a hotel) rents our machine. Berries by Astrid receives revenues, and the hotel receives a kick-back in X% of the revenues. Our customers will have a high frequency of visitors.
- Revenues from each smoothie, directly from the consumer.
Our machines will be placed in larger cities for effective logistics and minimizing costs.
Another scalable global income will be from white label-production of machines to other beverage companies that want their own drinks and brand.
Our prognosis for machines in service is:
2016:39
2017:230
2018:440
2019:800
Product/service distribution
We work with partners who give a complete cold-chain from Wapnö Dairy to the customer’s door. Accessories are distributed to our customer by our partner. Service and refill of smoothie are performed by the customer’s receptionists, alternatively by our service partner (e.g. Coor Service Management), depending on the customer’s need and geographical location. Technical maintenance and service are performed by certified service technicians. We supervise machine status 24-7 automatically through the business system of our partner. The system sends notifications and alarms to our service partners. All partners are chosen based on their excellence in service and distribution.
Execution
Previous milestones/traction
New milestones reached since last FundedByMe round:
August 2015
Closed FundedByMe round successfully as the most oversubscribed campaign in Scandinavia
December 2015
We signed contract with Svea Ekonomi who finance our rent and leasing model
January 2016
We finished the technology development phase.
February 2016
We filed two global patent applications, one regarding the machine technology and the other regarding the food production process.
April 2016
WE’VE GONE LIVE! We launched the world’s first smoothie vending machine at Coor Service Management’s office in Kista.
Next key objectives
We are focusing on sales! We will hire more staff to be able to take all customer’s wishes that keep coming in. And of course, production to meet the market demand. We will produce and deliver machines to customers primarily in the Stockholm area to begin with.
The following types of customers are in negotiations or already pre-signed contracts with us at the moment:
- Shopping malls, hotel chains, airports
- Offices with apacity of at least 20 purchases / machine and day
- Geographical locations: 1. Stockholm, 2. Malmö/Lund, 3. Göteborg
We start in Sweden, and go international after some years.
Previous Financing
We have spent thousands of engineer hours to develop our unique and advanced machine technology as well as the software platform, our recipes and the unique food production processplus we have developed the brand concept. Now it is all finally launched on the market! It’s a real milestone.
This is the financial support we have used to make the dream possible:
- VINNOVA Vinn Nu grant 30,000 EUR
- ALMI loan 210,000 EUR (almost debt-free now, only 16,000 EUR left to pay)
- Skånes Livsmedelsakademi grant 30,000 EUR
- Venture Cup prize 10,000 EUR
- Business angels
- FundedByMe 160,000 EUR
- …and bootstrapping!
Partnerships
We have built strong partnerships with stable, quality-assured and reliable companies that we can gain strong synergies from. The partnerships enable fast growth without the downside of large costs. Our partners are:
- Devex Mekatronik, Devex ProParts (machine construction and R&D, machine production)
- Info24 (Tingco business system, software engineering)
- Wapnö Dairy (smoothie production)
- Hallands Fruktindustrier (purée production)
- Coor Service Management (reseller and service partner)
- Axelssons Transport (logistics, warehouse)
- Home2You (cold spedition and delivery)
Industry Recognition
Industry Certification/Awards
Awards
- One of 20 Future Entrepreneurs 2014 (Svenska Dagbladet newspaper)
- One of 101 Super talents 2013 (Veckans Affärer magazine)
- One of the Rookie Super Communicators of the Year 2014 (Resumé magazine)
- 100 Rookies of the Year 2014 (Shortcut magazine)
- Rookie of the Year 2012 (Beautiful business awards)
- 2nd prize Best Business Plan 2011 (Venture Cup East Sweden)
- Listed as one of the hottests Swedish startups by the Veckans Affärer magazine 2013
Newspapers and magazines who wrote about us; Dagens Industri, Breakit.se, Företagaren, Hälsa&Fitness, Fitness Magazine, iForm, Fast Food Magazine, Veckans Affärer, Uppfinnaren & Konstruktören, etc.
Use of Funds
The funds will be used for growing the team to handle our fast company growth in a sustainable and scalable way. We will mainly focus on sales and marketing.
Exit strategy: We are open to different possibilities, e.g. IPO or merge/aquisition. Potential buyers include large companies within the food & beverage or vending industry, with established distribution channels and marketing capacity. As comparison, Coca-Cola Company bought 18% of Innocent Drinks shares for 30 million pounds in 2009 (366 MSEK).
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to join Berries by Astrid’s prize-winning globally scalable business at an early stage!