At the time of publication: Single venture round | Total funding raised: 30mn USD
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In the US, per capita soft drink consumption is a whopping 39 gallons or close to 150 liters. That translates to more than 600 8oz bottles every year per person. That’s a lot of environmental impact when you look at the water used, transport and landfill.
A new startup Cana wants to reduce all this waste while satisfying your beverage cravings - a machine that can sit on your kitchen table and ‘print’ thousands of beverages instantly!
The first version of the machine seen above is the ‘Cana One’.
You can use your own tap water. There is an ‘ingredient cartridge’ that Cana ships to your doorstep that you connect to Cana One. There are around 80 or so ingredients in it.
Once you remove the water, there is a small volume of drink that you are actually consuming, around 5% to 10%, so Cana concentrated those ingredients and loaded them into a cartridge that can hold more than 100 different beverages. The company has partnered with certain brands for drinks and also created their own combinations.
The magic happens with mixing and matching these 80 ingredients - Cana hence calls itself the ‘world’s first molecular beverage printer’.
The CEO explains:
“Think of that cartridge like your kitchen pantry. In your pantry, you’ve got sugar, salt, baking soda, butter. You can use those same ingredients to make different things, whether it’s cake or cookies or muffins. You just change the amount of each ingredient you use.”
… (the CEO) compares installing the ingredients cartridge to putting a tape in an old-school VCR. Depending on the drink you select — the press material suggests that could be in the thousands — the tiny ingredient capsules/wells dispense microscopic amounts of whatever flavor is needed, working in tandem with the other cartridges.
You can use your app or the touch screen on the machine to choose a drink you want and it is instantly prepared within 60 seconds.
You can also adjust a few things like the sugar content, flavor intensity, caffeine content etc.
The ingredient cartridge lasts about one to three months and is automatically reordered when it is running low.
The startup promises ‘Maximum Taste. Minimum Waste’. The big idea is that if you can use your own tap water and instantly make beverages right at your home, then the environment impact is reduced to a minimum.
Cana’s goal is to rebuild the $2 trillion beverage industry while also saving waste from going into landfills and excessive water being used at the same time. CEO Matt Mahar explained that Cana’s prototype would save the typical American household roughly 100 beverage containers per month. At scale, Cana could reduce the use of plastic and glass containers, water waste and the CO2 emissions of the global beverage manufacturing complex by more than 80%.
“It’s about changing the way things are made and shipped out,” he said. “Distributed manufacturing is made in one place and then shipped out to retailers. Now there is a different system of delivery that is directly to your house that can bypass supply chain constraints. The beverage printer is one manifestation.”
While it is great for the environment, there is also a lot to like about this as a business:
Great proposition for customers - you have the ability to ‘print’ thousands of beverages any time you want from your home. This is like the Netflix for Beverages
Beverages are a high frequency use case and once someone buys a machine like this that sits on their countertop, they are definitely going to be reminded of using it frequently. The LTV will be quite high
Companies like Sodastream have proven demand for these machines. Sodastream sells 3mn machines every year. Around 16% of German households and 20% of Swedish households have Sodastream machines. The US is less penetrated - there are around 2mn sodastream machines. Cana is like the next generation version of a Sodastream.
You can update and push new drink recipes over the internet to the machine
The pricing for Cana One is $799. The pricing model for the drinks is interesting - the ingredient cartridge is sent without any charge but you are charged a price depending on what you drink - anywhere from $0.29 to $2.99. The company contends that the monthly beverage price for consumers of different personas will be much lower than if they buy retail.
The $799 price point looks a bit steep but I assume it will trend lower with scale.
The pricing model of charging per drink might also be a friction point for some consumers. A subscription option can ideally be added for consumers. Cana One doesn’t yet have the ability to print alcoholic beverages yet but the company is likely to have this for future versions.
I assume the corporate channel will also be explored - this is a delightful option to have in the office for employees in addition to the regular coffee machine.
There can be other interesting opportunities that will delight consumers. For example, imagine consumers watching ads or completing ‘tasks’ and getting free credits that they can use towards their drinks. There can also be brand partnerships - Cana can easily help beverage companies test flavors with their customer base and get feedback at scale.
The CEO Matt Mahar is a seasoned executive with prior experience at Vivian Home, Electronic Arts and Nike.
It is early days (the Cana One ships in 2023) but can be a very big hit in a high frequency consumption use case. Cana is a high potential startup to watch out for.