GoodNews Launches a Crowdfunding Campaign on Crowdcube

Barcelona-based takeaway coffee startup GoodNews is launching a new financing method. After closing, last year, a round of €11 million, this Monday launched a crowdfunding campaign through the Crowdcube platform with the aim of involving its community in the growth and expansion of the company. The priority, this time, is not so much to fill the cashbox – in October they expect to break even – but to implement an innovative loyalty tool and create a community of brand lovers, to whom they will offer discounts in exchange for their investment.

“The goal with this round is not to raise the maximum amount of money but to attract the maximum number of consumers to become GoodNews shareholders. We have set ourselves the challenge of getting around 5,000 people to take the plunge,” the company’s CEO, Jan Barthe, told The New Barcelona Post.

Over the next 30 days, those interested in participating in this microfinancing operation can do so by investing a minimum of €20. The company has established four different rewards depending on the investment made, with tranches ranging from €20, €500, €1,000, and more than €1,000, and associated discounts of between 20% and 50% on the purchase price of coffees at GoodNews locations.

For example, in the case of investing €20 through Crowdcube, you get a 20% discount for a whole year. “Let’s imagine a customer who drinks two GoodNews coffees a day, which amounts to a consumption of around €800 a year. With that 20% discount, he is saving €160 in exchange for an investment of €20,” exemplified Barthe.

“We want to continue to share coffee and good vibes, but we also want all those who have believed in us to have the opportunity to be part of our journey,” stressed the young entrepreneur, convinced that this “disruptive rewards program will set a precedent in the sector.”

GoodNews was founded in 2020 in Barcelona by five friends (Jan Barthe, Fernando Conde, Alejandro Catasús, Lucas de Gispert, and Ignacio Campos) and currently has 30 points of sale in the Catalan capital, Madrid and Paris. This figure is expected to grow to 40 outlets by the end of this year, a year in which turnover is expected to reach 6 million euros. The priority is currently focused on growing in the French capital, always with the take-away coffee or grab-and-go model, with small premises of a maximum of 70 square meters located in the best areas of the city, in very commercial streets with a high density of offices.

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The objective of GoodNews is to reach 100 outlets by 2025

New stores will also be opened in Barcelona and Madrid, but the company has ruled out entering other Spanish cities for the time being. The focus of growth will be Europe, where, after Paris, GoodNews is already preparing to enter the Netherlands and Denmark, with openings in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, scheduled for 2024. The goal of the GoodNews expansion plan is to reach 60 stores by 2024 and to raise the figure to 100 by 2025. In Paris, the firm plans to end the year with ten outlets and to add 15 locations by 2024.

Barthe said that Good News will break even this October, so it will be able to finance its daily operations with the resources it generates. Thus, the remaining amount of the €11 million investment round raised a year ago can be used entirely to finance the plan for new openings. That Series A round was led by Desigual’s owner, Thomas Meyer, and also involved Barlon Capital, the fund led by Javier Rubió -co-founder of Cluster, Nauta, and Galdana-, and other investors who had previously invested in the company, which has so far raised 15 million euros.

According to the CEO, to make the leap in size and reach 100 stores, between 2024 and 2025 it will be necessary to launch a new series B round, for an amount not yet quantified, but which is expected to be higher than the operation carried out in 2022. “Our mission is that in the next 10 years, GoodNews will have become one of the largest coffee startups in the world, with a dominant position in Europe’s major cities,” stressed Barthe.

GoodNews, which already has 130 employees, was created in the middle of the pandemic with the aim of reinventing newsstands, a model that was launched with a new-generation kiosk located at the intersection of Diagonal and Balmes Street. The startup, however, gradually mutated to become a takeaway coffee brand aimed at a very young consumer who does not empathize with traditional brands and chains. Today, of the 30 points of sale, twelve (located in Barcelona and Madrid) are still unique kiosks that combine the sale of coffee and newspapers, but the rest are small stores focused solely on the takeaway of cups of coffee.

Each store is equipped with a Jura brand automatic coffee machine and sells a single type of coffee, GoodNews Barcelona, the result of blending the beans of three specialty coffees of the Arabica variety from selected cooperatives in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. In addition, packs of coffee beans or ground coffee of up to eight varieties can also be purchased in the stores, to be prepared at home. The roasting and packaging process is carried out at the facilities of a supplier located in Cardona. “To have our own coffee roastery, we still need much more volume,” explained Barthe, who calculated that it would be advisable to make the investment once we exceed 50 million in sales.

In addition to the physical points of sale, GoodNews sells coffee online and has also launched a B2B division, i.e. the sale of coffee by subscription and superautomatic machines to companies and offices. It already has more than 100 companies with a total workforce of around 10,000 employees as customers. In parallel, the business has diversified into the category of natural and vitamin supplements that help to improve certain biological functions.

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(Featured image by 13758299 via Pixabay)

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First published in theNBP. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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