GoodNews, the coffee marketing startup run by Jan Barthe Cuatrecasas, has closed a round of 11 million euros to speed up its international expansion. Thomas Meyer, founder of Desigual, through his company La Vida es Chula, and Barlon Capital, an investment firm run by Javier Rubió, have led the operation, in which the company's current shareholders have also participated.
GoodNews was born in 2021, transforming kiosks with the incorporation of the sale of coffee to go, and since then it has expanded its business model, with the sale of coffee to go in stores on the street and the online marketing of automatic coffee machines and organic coffee, to homes and SMEs, through a subscription system.
GoodNews was born in the middle of the pandemic as an initiative of a group of friends: Barthe himself, Fernando Conde (launch director), Alejandro Catasús (experience director), Ignacio Campos (operations director) and Lucas de Gispert (expansion director), and the round is the largest raised in Europe by a company in the sector. Before, the firm had raised 4 million euros, with investors such as Antonio Gallardo (Almirall group) and businessman and publicist Rafael Esteve (Danone and Pastoret de la Segarra).
Barthe explains that the firm already has 21 coffee-to-go stores in Barcelona, Madrid and Paris, and with the new funds it plans to open in Amsterdam, where it already has contracted locations, as well as in Copenhagen and Helsinki, and reach the 40 points of sale before the end of the year. "We are looking for small premises, less than 75 m2, in office areas with a lot of traffic, because outside of Spain and Paris, bad weather means that there are no kiosks." In all countries, the firm will also arrive with its coffee sales subscription service.
GoodNews focuses on a young audience, between 16 and 35 years old, aware of environmental issues, offering them a modern brand, organic coffee with a social certificate at a price 30% lower than other similar formats. "Our stores, moreover, are our point of sale for our subscription coffee line - he explains - and in all of them we have an editorial corner, with books, press or magazines, which links us to our origins in the kiosks."
GoodNews had a turnover of 1 million euros last year, a result that it hopes to multiply this year, with a staff of 90 people that will reach one hundred by the end of the year.
