High-end coffee retailer Blue Bottle Coffee, a favorite of the tech community, has received an additional $70 million in funding from several big-name tech investors and Fidelity Management and Research.
Tetragon Financial Group, Morgan Stanley, Index Ventures, True Ventures, Bono, Jared Leto, Tony Hawk, and Instagram founder Kevin Systrom contributed to the round.
The company, which operates 19 locations in New York City, California, and Japan, has become hugely popular with hipsters and techies from coast to coast. Vintage brewing machines and artisanal coffee are some of its major selling points, and lines are known to get long.
The chain previously raised a $25 million round in January 2014, with contributions from Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Twitter cofounder Evan Williams, VC Chris Sacca, and WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg.
Last year, we paid a visit to the spacious Blue Bottle cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to see what the hype is all about.
We visited Blue Bottle's Brooklyn shop, located on a pretty nondescript street in Williamsburg. The cafe is housed in an early 20th-century brick building that, according to Blue Bottle's site, was at different times used by glass blowers, metal smiths, and barrel makers.
We got our first glance of their famous Blue Bottle logo right at the entrance. The logo on a to-go cup is part of the company's cachet and a sure sign the drinker is "in the know" about what's cool in the world of coffee.
Guests were sipping coffee and reading the newspaper at the counter when we visited in the late morning.
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