This $500 Machine Makes Cocktails and Coffee. Just Add Water (and Capital)
The startup Cana is building a device that can make anything from seltzer to wine, but investment has suddenly become tough to come by.
Like robot pizza makers or autonomous baristas, an area of food technology that has captivated numerous venture capitalists is at-home drink machines. Cana Technology Inc. has been pitching an all-in-one beverage maker that can produce cocktails, coffee, seltzer or wine by adding water to its machine-mixed concoctions. The company is backed by the Production Board, which counts Alphabet Inc. and Laurene Powell Jobs as investors and said in January that it had poured $30 million into Cana and planned to expand its staff.
But in a sign of how quickly the venture capital market has turned, Cana’s subsequent fundraising efforts have stalled, and the startup in June quietly laid off 16% of its staff, said people familiar with the business. The cuts included the heads of the company’s product and marketing divisions.