Chamberlain Coffee, the ready-to-drink and bagged coffee brand founded by YouTube star Emma Chamberlain, this morning announced it has closed a $7 million funding round led by existing investors Blazar Capital, United Talent Agency and Chamberlain herself.
The round also brings new investors to the company’s cap table, including growth equity firm Volition Capital, Electric Feel Ventures, PLTFRM founder Noah Bremen, and beverage incubator L.A. Libations, the latter of which had previously worked with the brand to help establish its retail business last year.
The new financing follows a similarly sized $7 million Series A round last year, also led by Blazar and Chamberlain that helped the digital native brand to mount an omnichannel expansion strategy. Today, Chamberlain Coffee produces a variety of dry coffees and teas with a retail footprint of around 4,500 doors nationwide. In April, it launched a highly anticipated RTD canned coffee line into Walmart stores across the country.
Founder Emma Chamberlain, who turned 22 last month, rose to fame as a high school student around 2017 after starting her YouTube channel, which has over 12 million subscribers. She founded Chamberlain Coffee in 2019 as a D2C brand producing a variety of organic whole bean and ground coffees, and has since expanded the business to include pods, steeped varieties, and categories like matcha, hot chocolate, and chocolate covered espresso beans.
Speaking to BevNET this week, Chamberlain Coffee CEO Chris Gallant said the company now looks to add as many as 4,000 more retail doors this year as the RTD line is expected to become the key focus for the business.
“I really expect the RTD SKUs to be our hero product within 12 months,” Gallant said. “If we look at where coffee consumers are overall, they’re drinking cold coffee, they’re drinking RTDs. And then if you drill down on our specific cohort of consumers, who tend to be younger, like younger millennials plus Gen Z, they’re well ahead of that curve.”
Chamberlain Coffee introduced its canned line at Natural Products Expo West 2023 in March with four flavors – Mocha Latte, Cinnamon Bun Latte, Vanilla Latte and Cold Brew Latte. Each drink is dairy-free, made with almond milk and coconut cream, and sweetened with date syrup. The coffees contain 70 mg of caffeine, 110-120 calories and 1 gram of sugar per 12 oz. slim can with an SRP of $2.98.
In addition to Walmart, Chamberlain Coffee is available in natural and conventional channel retailers including Sprouts, Bristol Farms, Erewhon, and Pop Up Grocer. Chamberlain Coffee now has 12 full time employees and Gallant said the business will add four or five additional team members this year, particularly on sales and operations as it seeks to break out into new sales channels.
Looking ahead, Gallant said much of the new capital will go towards marketing, with plans to test out-of-home, TV and podcast ads in the near future, as well as point-of-sale and in-store promotions. While much of the brand’s early buzz has been bolstered by Emma Chamberlain’s personal popularity, he said the next step is to raise awareness for Chamberlain Coffee with consumers outside of her fanbase.
Emma Chamberlain will continue to be the face of the brand in advertisements, Gallant said, but the company is also working to expand the brand’s standalone story in order to reach a broader demographic. For example, the animal mascots on the packaging may be tapped in marketing materials to “evoke the spirit” of different blends or flavors and some ads will lean on the products themselves more than Emma Chamberlain’s celebrity.
“This is Chamberlain Coffee, it’s Emma’s company, so I think a lot of the brand will always be focused around her,” he said. “We’re still going to continue to work hand-in-hand to promote to her audience and to promote to a bigger audience.”
The new funding will be put towards innovation as well, with more launches on the dry coffee business expected to be announced in the coming months, while RTD innovation is planned for later.
“We’ve been operating as a dry goods coffee company …for a couple years and now it’s a well-oiled machine, so we’ll have innovation there,” Gallant said. “I think the RTD innovation is where we’re spending a lot of the effort because it’s new to us.”