CAYE raises 400M CNY to rethink the commercial coffee machine
What's the deal? Chinese commercial coffee machine brand CAYE Technology has raised nearly 400 million CNY (around $58.8 million) in a Series B round.
Meituan LongzhuDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with Bairui CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, HillhouseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Suzhou Capital GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → joining. It is the largest single funding round in the fully automatic commercial coffee machine sector to date.
Founded in December 2022, CAYE designs its machines around a self-developed "Bionic Barista" system, rethinking grinding, dosing, tamping, and extraction.
Why now? China's coffee industry has grown fast, but most mid- and low-end commercial machines still use cheap POM plastic in their brewing modules.
Under high heat, pressure, and frequent use, those parts age and can leach harmful substances — a hidden food-safety risk in machines used by many leading Chinese chains.
CAYE built more than 90% of each machine from metal, with all core brewing modules in food-grade metal. Its self-developed dosing system keeps per-cup weight error within ±0.2g, hitting a 95% accuracy rate against an industry standard of 70%.
"Food safety is the most basic issue," founder Wu Peng told 36Kr. "If we can't even guarantee food safety, the most advanced extraction technology loses its meaning."
What could go wrong? CAYE is taking on entrenched European brands that have dominated the global market for decades.
It is also the only brand in the sector to develop all core components in-house, from raw materials to sensors — a vertically integrated approach that is capital-intensive and harder to scale than simple assembly.
Its Suzhou base currently plans annual capacity above 40,000 units. A new 38,000m² smart factory, due to open in 2028, targets 100,000 units a year.
The signal: Backing from Meituan LongzhuDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — the investment fund tied to Chinese delivery and services giant Meituan — alongside HillhouseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → signals that an early-stage company barely three years old is being positioned as a serious challenger to entrenched European machine-makers. Pairing that strategic capital with CAYE's vertically integrated, in-house manufacturing approach suggests its backers are betting on a long, capital-intensive climb up the hardware value chain rather than a quick assembly play.
Read more: 36Kr
Image credit: HungryHuy (Openverse/Flickr)
