Coffeebanhada, known for robot barista, seeks investment for expansion

Coffeebanhada, a South Korean budget coffee chain operator, is seeking to attract investment from private equity funds and strategic investors.

According to the investment banking industry on Monday, the coffee brand recently sent out an investment teaser to PEFs and financial investors, for a stake sale.

Coffeebanhada, also known as Curban in short, plans to issue new shares to investors for an equity investment. The company doesn’t rule out a buyout offer that includes the management right, according to sources.

It has chosen Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers as its stake-sale adviser.

Established in July 2013, Coffeebanhada is known for its low-priced coffee products, including Americano, which sells at 2,000 won ($1.7).

The company posted 1.7 billion won in operating profit with 18.7 billion won revenue in 2019 and runs 670 outlets across Korea.

According to Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, it is the country’s fourth-largest budget coffee brand with a 7.6% market share following Ediya Coffee (47.4%), Mega Coffee (18.1%) and Paik’s Coffee (16.5%).

Cofeebanhada developed a robot barista called “Episode Marco” in 2017 to expand its unmanned self-service smart cafes. The barista robot can make about 100 drinks, including iced coffees. The company currently operates 170 smart cafes.

“Unmanned cafes will gain popularity going forward in the non-contact era. We aim to expand the number of our smart cafes to 1,428 by 2025 with sales of 128.4 billion won by then,” said a Coffeebanhada official.

Write to Ji-Hye Min at spop@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.