Bevi: Not Your Parents' Office Water Cooler

DELIVERING THE FIRST PRODUCT

It also got them into Techstars, which ended up being a coup for the fledgling venture. Not only were they forced to work hard in a focused space, they gained their first investment-backing and were able to hire an employee, Mike Wing, a mechanical design engineer. They also found their market.

“In an office market, a lot of folks already carry glasses and coffee mugs, so the need for our machine to dispense reusable bottles is eliminated,” Lee maintains. “That simplified the machine quite a bit from a technical and design standpoint.” It also made the business model easier, Lee says. “In the office market, you essentially just have to convince one decision maker to lease our machine,” he continues.

The team, still going by the name Refresh, found their first customer in the MIT Mentoring Venture Service. But with a deal in place, the team remembered one issue. They had to move the giant machine from their shop to the building. “It wasn’t really big, but it was relatively heavy,” Lee recalls, mentioning they didn’t want to leave it up to professional movers. “It was super dangerous and I trusted no one to do it besides myself,” Lee continues. So Lee pulled the dispenser up the ramp into the back of their delivery van and shimmied out behind it as it came to rest. “It really helped us to see the way things actually are, because we were doing the work ourselves,” Lee says.

THE NAME ‘REFRESH’ WAS ‘HONESTLY TERRIBLE’

In 2015, the momentum started to build. First, at the beginning of the year, the team decided to change names.

“It was honestly terrible,” Lee says of the name Refresh. “Because, the only URL we could afford back then was ‘Re-freshwater.com.’ Every time somebody emailed us it would start with ‘hello, Re-fresh.’ It was really sad.”

In May of 2015, Bevi earned a $1.5 million Seed round, led by Tamarisc. Later that summer, they moved into a out of a shop where they were making the machines themselves and into a commercial production space. And in December of 2015, they raised a $6.5 million Series A round, led by Horizons Ventures. Adding an undisclosed seed round from 2014, Lee says the team has $14 million in backing.

THE SMARTEST WATER COOLER ON THE PLANET?

Now, the company lists 10 cities it regularly operates in. Their machines stand a little over five feet tall and a little less than two feet wide and only take a water and electric hookup. Users may choose four of 11 flavor options, which are developed by Bevi and include flavors like unsweetened lime mint, orange mango, and blueberry cucumber.

Lee says the value of the product is two-fold. First, it’s good for the environment.

“All of the Bevi machines are connected to the municipal water supply,” Lee explains. “So, we just take tap water, we filter it, flavor it, and add carbonation to it. We are baking the sustainability mission into the product.”

According to the company, Bevi uses 80% less energy to deliver products than the bottled beverage industry. Each Bevi machine eliminates usage of about 35,000 bottles on average, their site claims.

Second, the internet-connectedness allows the company to monitor and track which flavors are popular in real time. According to Lee, it helps them optimize their supply chain from a service standpoint. Meaning, they can monitor flavor and carbonation levels of each machine and make sure they never run dry. They are also able to track data like which flavors are popular, which ones are not, and who is using their product demographically. Lee says they are now able to share that valuable data with other beverage makers. “Data they couldn’t see before,” he boasts.

‘WE WORK REALLY HARD ON OUR RELATIONSHIPS’

Lee wouldn’t share profit or revenue margins, so it’s still unclear how much (or if) the company is making money. But for Lee, the relationships built seem to be enough for now.

“I can draw very similar parallels between my marriage and between myself and Sean and Eliza,” Lee jokes. “When they say going into business is like marrying your partner, it’s absolutely true. There has to be a level of trust and willingness to make sure things work out.”

And for now, it’s working on those relationships that Lee says has led to success and will keep them successful in continued growth and scaling.

“Each of us care about Bevi very much, but maybe sometimes in different ways,” Lee admits. “But we always work hard at making sure we understand each other and are still able to work well with each other. We work really hard on our relationships.”

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