INCAPTO, the Spanish startup of sustainable coffee, enters Italy with a € 6 million round led by P101

The company eliminates capsule waste with a “bean-to-cup” offer and ensures the quality of the supply chain by working directly with farmers from around the world.  

Shareholders JME Ventures, Atresmedia, the Portuguese fund Bynd and the Drago family office – De Agostini group, invested alongside P101

INCAPTO – the Spanish startup that promotes sustainable and fair trade specialty coffee beans consumption through an advanced technological approach, born in the midst of the pandemic in Barcelona with the aim of offering an alternative to capsules – closes a €6 million investment round led by P101 SGR (“P101”), a leading player in Italian Venture Capital with a European focus.

P101 invested in INCAPTO through the Programma 103 and Azimut ELTIF Venture Capital P103 funds and is the Lead Investor of an operation that also involved previous shareholders JME Ventures, Atresmedia and the Portuguese fund Bynd.  The family office of the Drago family – De Agostini Group –also joins the company in this latest round.

The operation will allow the Barcelona based company to boost its European expansion, starting with Italy, France, and Portugal.

“This capital injection is also a significant vote of confidence for us, especially at such a crucial moment as our entry into the Italian market, where coffee is much more than a beverage: it’s an institution, a source of national pride. We believe that change should be everyone’s everyday job, and we commit ourselves every day to ensure the transition to a better and more sustainable coffee for the planet, for consumers, and for growers,” says Francesc Font, co-founder of INCAPTO.

INCAPTO originated from the fortunate encounter between Francesc Font and Joaquim Mach, co-founders of the company, who wanted to create an online sales business for recurring and sustainable purchases, and Beatriz Mesas, a professional coffee taster and co-founder. Together they found in coffee a potentially ideal product, although its consumption translates nowadays into a serious impact on the planet.

Indeed, every year 80% of 60 billion coffee capsules produced worldwide, end up in landfills or incinerators. These data make the transition to sustainable solutions even more urgent from both an environmental and human perspective, considering that 91% of the population drinks at least one cup a day in Italy, the 7th country in the world for consumption, with over 5 million sacks every year. At a global level, 9.5 billion kg of coffee are produced annually, volumes set to triple by 2050.

Thanks to a subscription-based business model for specialty coffee for companies as well as for individuals, INCAPTO has reached 20,000 customers in just over 3 years and more than 2,000 businesses connected to the platform, closing 2023 with a turnover of over €7,000,000, projected to double in 2024. INCAPTO also allows the purchase of super-automatic coffee machines connected to a proprietary IoT platform, to enjoy freshly ground coffee quickly and without generating any unnecessary waste.

“We have made an ethical and sustainable approach our flag, in a market where 44% of small coffee producers live in extreme poverty. By combining fair trade with responsible agricultural processes, we are working to introduce a new standard of coffee consumption, stemming the consequences of climate change and respecting the biodiversity surrounding the growing areas. And we are doing all this starting from our technological and digital soul, a fundamental part of our company and of our unique offer” commented Joaquim Mach, co-founder of INCAPTO.

Stefano Guidotti, Partner at P101, concluded: “We welcome INCAPTO as Portfolio Company of Programma 103. INCAPTO is a new chapter in our so far successful experience in Spain and consolidates P101 as an important player in the digital innovation space in Southern Europe. Furthermore, this investment allows us to support the international growth of a company that, like few, combines two elements that are central to P101’s future: sustainability and technology, in this case applied to a particularly interesting sector such as specialty coffee”.

This operation benefited from support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund.