Kuvée, an IoT for wine startup that had raised $6mm of
venture capital, announced that it was shuttering this week. The company produced Wifi-enabled bottles with
a touch-screen display; the bottles contained wine in a cartridge that
supposedly kept the wine fresh for up to 30 days. The initial bottle with four wine cartridges cost
~$180, which I think is well above the price point that most casual drinkers
are used to – and if you’re more than a casual wine drinker, you probably don’t
care as much about wine staying fresh for 30 days (it never lasts that long in
my house!). The cartridges, which were the
same size as a standard 750mL bottle of wine, cost between $15 and $50 each to
replace.
The company had received some hype (its preorder sold out on
Indiegogo in 3 hours) but also some criticism (basically that it was the “Juicero”
of wine). It seems like consumers didn’t
believe there was enough substance to merit the investment of totally switching
to the Kuvée system. I myself had seen
advertisements and had looked into it, but I was reluctant to purchase
something that required such a wholesale switch. I like to be able to purchase wines from
wineries I’m interested in and as part of wine clubs, and this wouldn’t be
compatible with standard bottles.
It looks like they are trying to sell the assets of the
company, so maybe this technology will be reborn as the many others we’ve seen
in this class. Either way, it’s a reminder
of how important it is to make sure you have a good customer value proposition –
just hitting a lot of IoT buzzwords is not enough.
Here’s a few articles if you’re interested:
No comments:
Post a Comment