36Kr Exclusive | CAYE Completed Nearly RMB 400 Million in Series B Financing, the Largest Single Funding in the Commercial Automatic Coffee Machine Track

Author | Zhong Yixuan

36Kr learned that the commercial fully automatic coffee machine brand "CAYE" has completed a nearly 400 million yuan Series B financing. This round of financing was led by Meituan Longzhu, an old shareholder, and jointly participated in by institutions such as Borui Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, and Suzhou Venture Capital Group. This is also the largest single - round financing in the commercial fully automatic coffee machine track so far.

CAYE is a company that 36Kr has been continuously following. The company was established in December 2022. Centering around its self - developed Bionic Barista system, CAYE has redesigned core processes such as coffee grinding, powder weight control, powder distribution and tamping, and pressure extraction, redefining the commercial fully automatic coffee machine.

Currently, CAYE's coffee machine products have entered boutique chain coffee shops and commercial chain coffee stores, including many well - known domestic coffee chain brands. CAYE is also expanding overseas markets simultaneously, and its products have covered more than 80 countries and regions around the world.

Back to the most basic question of a cup of coffee: Food safety

In the past few years, the Chinese coffee industry has grown at a high speed. However, for upstream equipment, industry discussions have mainly revolved around cost, efficiency, and automation. Few people have re - asked a more basic question: Is a cup of coffee really safe enough?

In fact, most commercial coffee machines positioned in the mid - to - low - end market choose low - cost POM plastics for their core brewing modules to compress production costs. Under the high - temperature, high - pressure, and high - frequency cup - dispensing intensity of commercial scenarios, plastic parts are extremely prone to aging and hydrolysis. This not only increases the after - sales replacement cost but may also continuously release harmful substances.

And these types of commercial coffee machines are exactly the brand models used by most mainstream coffee brands in China. On one hand, they are widely used in the industry; on the other hand, there are highly concealed food safety issues, all of which will become potential health risks.

In addition, traditional equipment has poor extraction stability, with large errors in timed powder dropping and uneven powder distribution. Once the coffee beans are changed, the environmental temperature and humidity fluctuate, or the equipment ages, the taste of the coffee will change significantly. Under such circumstances, traditional equipment relies heavily on professional personnel for debugging and it is difficult to achieve long - term high - quality standard output.

Wu Peng, the founder of CAYE, told 36Kr that in the past, the global commercial coffee machine market was long - term monopolized by overseas brands, but the rise of domestic equipment is reconstructing industry safety and manufacturing standards.

CAYE product picture

Different from the industry's common use of a large number of plastic parts, CAYE has almost reconstructed the whole - machine design. The core brewing modules of all its equipment are made of food - grade metal materials, and more than 90% of the whole machine uses metal parts, avoiding potential food safety risks caused by plastic aging from the hardware source.

"Food safety is the most basic issue." Wu Peng told 36Kr. "Today, the entire coffee industry is developing vigorously. But if we can't even guarantee the most basic food safety, then even the most advanced extraction technology loses its meaning of implementation."

In addition, in terms of powder weight control, compared with the previous methods of fixed grinding time and powder cake volume weighing, CAYE's self - developed APW high - precision powder weight weighing system controls the single - cup powder weight error within ±0.2g, solving the taste fluctuations caused by the deviation of traditional timed powder dropping. Taking CAYE's Smart Y product as an example, its compliance rate can reach over 95%, while the industry's qualified compliance rate is 70%.

These technologies ultimately mean lower costs at the store operation level. Taking a store with a daily output of about 500 cups as an example, after using the AccuPowderWeigh powder weight control system, it can save about 300 kilograms of coffee beans per year, reducing the operating cost by nearly 30,000 yuan.

In contrast, the single - grinding deviation of traditional fully automatic coffee machines often exceeds 1 gram. For every 50 to 100 cups of coffee made, the grinding needs to be readjusted three or four times, and a large amount of tested coffee powder is ultimately wasted.

CAYE's self - developed APW high - precision powder weight weighing system

The only commercial coffee machine daring to disassemble the whole machine

Different from the industry practice of overseas whole - machine manufacturers with fragmented division of labor and external procurement of core components, CAYE is the only domestic brand in the track that has achieved full - process independent R & D of core components.

European established coffee machine enterprises have a clear division of industrial labor boundaries. The grinding module, cutter head, weighing sensor, and main control circuit board are separately supplied by different suppliers, and the whole - machine manufacturers only do assembly and integration. However, CAYE has achieved full - chain self - research from raw materials, core parts, sensing control systems to the whole machine, realizing technological self - control.

In the R & D of core components, CAYE has achieved cross - industry technology implementation. The ceramic cutter head was jointly developed with a bearing supporting manufacturer for Suzhou textile machines. Core components such as the fuselage shell and weighing sensing module integrate the high - precision manufacturing supply chain capabilities of textile equipment, medical devices, and new energy vehicles. The R & D investment scale of the new energy and automotive industries' industrial chains is tens of thousands of times that of the commercial coffee machine track. CAYE has sunk the mature high - precision manufacturing system into the coffee equipment niche track, forming a dimensionality - reduction innovation advantage.

"The R & D investment in the new energy vehicle industrial chain may be ten thousand times that of the entire coffee machine industry. We hope to use a more mature and advanced supply chain capability to build a new commercial coffee machine." Wu Peng told 36Kr.

As of now, CAYE has cumulatively applied for more than 300 patents, with the proportion of invention patents exceeding 40% and the technology achievement conversion rate exceeding 70%. CAYE's multiple self - developed core systems also form a complete technology matrix. The self - developed APW high - precision powder weight weighing system controls the single - cup powder weight error within ±0.2 grams. The self - developed VVD vertical vibration powder distribution system makes the powder bed more uniform, reducing the extraction channel effect. The CLS fully automatic extraction closed - loop calibration system collects extraction data in real - time and automatically adapts to different coffee beans and the store's temperature and humidity environment without manual repeated debugging. Coupled with the SuperMix intelligent milk foam system, it further improves the stability of hot and cold milk foam.

CAYE's complete technology matrix

In recent years, CAYE's figure has frequently appeared at global top - level industry exhibitions, including the Shanghai HotelEX Hotel Supplies Exhibition, the HostMilano International Hotel Exhibition in Milan, Italy, and the NRA Show in Chicago, USA, and other domestic and overseas authoritative industry exhibitions.

"During the industry exhibitions, we are the only brand in the whole venue that dares to disassemble the whole machine completely and show the core components and internal modules to customers and peers." Wu Peng introduced. The confidence in the fully self - developed underlying technology allows CAYE to disclose all hardware structures and accept professional inspections from the entire industry.

CAYE participates in industry exhibitions

At the product level, CAYE builds a complete hierarchical product matrix referring to Tesla's SEXY series. The naming concept comes from "Smart is the new SEXY". It uses safe, intelligent, and standardized hardware to cover all commercial scenarios such as convenience stores, boutique coffee shops, and corporate tea rooms, forming a complete product line layout covering the high, medium, and low - end and adapting to multiple channels.

In the market, the main models of CAYE's X series have now been sold to more than 80 countries and regions around the world. In the domestic market, the annual sales volume of the X series whole machines this year has exceeded the total sales volume of the same - level imported brands in the domestic market in the past more than a decade.

In terms of production capacity, the current planned annual production capacity of CAYE's existing production base in Suzhou has exceeded 40,000 units. At the same time, a new 38,000 - square - meter intelligent production base is under construction. It is planned to be completed and put into operation in 2028, reaching the production capacity target of 100,000 units per year.

CAYE's SEXY full product series

36Kr also learned that the funds from this round of financing will be mainly used for core technology R & D, expansion of production bases, expansion of domestic and overseas markets, and construction of a global after - sales service system.

Wu Peng said that in the future, the company will continue to promote the industry to eliminate plastic brewing solutions with safety hazards and popularize food - grade metal safety standards. It hopes to use self - developed hard technology to make commercial coffee machines return to their original mission - to let more people drink a healthy and safe cup of good coffee.