Coffee Tech Startup BROWNBAG Raises $5.24M in Series A Funding… Brings to Total $7.5M

Coffee tech startup BROWNBAG(브라운백) has secured $5.24 million (KRW 7 billion) in Series A funding.

The investment was led by KDB Bank, BASS Investment, Widsdom Asset Management Korea and DASAN Ventures. This comes nearly three years after the company raised a $2.25 million (KRW 300 million) pre-Series A from Medici Investment in 2021, recognising the business viability and growth of its office coffee subscription business, and brings BROWNBAG’s cumulative investment to date to $7.5 million (KRW 1 billion).

Founded in 2015, BROWNBAG manufactures and sells coffee beans that match customers’ tastes and preferences based on order data, and launched its office coffee subscription service, BLISS, in 2019 to provide beans and coffee machines optimised for office environments.

BLISS is a subscription model that combines coffee bean delivery and coffee machine rental, providing high-quality coffee subscription services to offices, private businesses and other places where coffee is needed, and has secured more than 20 times revenue and a 99.8% retention rate in the two years since the brand’s launch. In May last year, the company became the first in the industry to expand its service area nationwide, becoming the No. 1 office coffee subscription service in Korea with more than 3,000 customers nationwide, including large corporations, start-ups, government agencies and major hospitals.

With this investment, BROWNBAG plans to strengthen its position as a coffee technology company. To this end, the investment will be used to upgrade the ‘BLISS’ service and launch the ‘AWARE’ cloud coffee machine, which is being developed for public release in the first half of the year. In particular, the ‘AWARE’ cloud coffee machine will be launched to provide convenient ground coffee in commercial spaces such as hotels, restaurants, convenience stores and other service franchises outside the office environment, based on features such as remote management and control, contactless automatic cleaning and a touch screen for intuitive menu selection.

Moo-Young Lee, Director of BASS Investment, which participated in the investment, said: “BROWNBAG has successfully expanded its business by targeting the office coffee market. He also explained the reason for this investment, “We are confident that BROWNBAG will leap forward to become a competitive coffee company in the global market through endless challenges.

“The domestic coffee market is currently valued at $11.23 billion (KRW 15 trillion) and growing every year, but the digital transformation has been very slow compared to other industries,” said Jong-soo Son, CEO of BROWNBAG. “The taste and quality of domestic coffee beans have been leveled up, and next-generation coffee machines will be the key technology to drive the coffee industry forward. As a coffee tech company that combines coffee and digital, Brownback will take the next step and transform the traditional coffee industry”.