# Octane Coffee

We're building the world's first Fully Automated Coffee Drive-Thru!

## Elevator pitch
We sell premium coffee, tea, and juice drinks via a fully automated drive-thru lane. All drinks are ordered, customized, prepared, and delivered via software and hardware automation that we developed in house.

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/octane.coffee
- Entity ID: wefunder:company:72004
- Last updated: 2026-07-23T05:00:19Z
- Generated at: 2026-07-24T00:41:40Z

## Quick facts
- Our business will be automated and requires 30 mins of labor per day for projected $1K+ daily profit
- Founders have raised $200k+ and built an amazing technical, business, marketing, and mentoring team
- FoodTech Automation adoption has accelerated due to COVID and we're set to launch and grow quickly
- Founding team has a combined 50+ years in foodservice, manufacturing, and automation design

## Active fundraises
- wefunder:fundraise:38615: 4(a)(6) successful (USD)

## Story
At its core, Octane Coffee is focused on reimagining the drive-thru coffee experience using a full suite of advanced software and hardware automation. We've built an amazing team of founders, supplier partners, and advisors to help us launch and grow this business. The COVID-19 pandemic has created huge shifts in customer demand for Quick-Service-Retail (QSR) and Coffee Shops and we're poised to provide a completely contactless drink production and delivery concept that has gotten a lot of good feedback from our early BETA test groups. The drink quality is there and the production automated is proven out, our next step is to scale our unit up into a full size drive-thru location.Our target market is the 18-45 year old commuter who buys a coffee on-the-go as part of their daily routine. They are typically busy professionals, parents with kids in the car, and students with expendable income. The 'away-from-home' coffee industry is huge, FIVE TIMES bigger than the ‘at-home’ market and estimated at $73.9 Billion dollars per year.We've always believed that the romantic view of Starbucks WASN'T how most of their customers actually used the service ("I could bring my laptop/book down here and sit with my coffee or have a quick informal meeting."). Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson came out with a statement in April 2020 when Coronavirus shut most of the companies stores down: "about 80 percent of orders were placed “on-the-go” even before COVID-19" showcasing that customers ACTUALLY used Starbucks in a grab-and-go fashion 80% of the time, even before Coronavirus. We sell to that 80% that doesn't care about luxurious interior build-outs or the sights/smells/sounds/ambiance of the coffee shop experience, they just want their coffee and want to get on with their day.Our vision is to franchise our automated drive-thru concept nationwide (employee-free!) and we hope to be the first QSR 'drive-thru' company to achieve automated delivery via drones to moving cars on the freeway, it truly is the pinnacle of convenience (obviously lots of safety, logistical, and regulatory hurdles!). We hope you'll invest in Octane Coffee and we look forward to bringing our concept to your city to be a part of your daily routine!For more info, please contact me via e-mail --> adrian@octanemke.com

## FAQ
1. **Hi. I have some questions: -What are your revenue goals for the first 5 years? -Can the drive through be left unattended or does it require someone in the facilities at all times? -Do you have your own brand of coffee and tea?**
   - We're looking to grow each location to $500k+/yr in revenue with ~60% profit margin.  We're planning to launch 5-10 corporate locations within the first 5 years and also looking at 20+ franchise locations within that timeline.Each location requires ~30 minutes of labor per day for restocking and cleaning but otherwise runs completely unattended.  We have a lot of experience building industrial automation that needs to run 24/7/365 without issues.  Customer s...
2. **HI, How does it work? Do you need a building with a drive-thru to setup the machine? How customers can make payments? Is it possible to setup the machine inside a building?**
   - I can't share proprietary details, but basically imagine a Starbucks drive-thru with robots inside making all of the drinks.  We utilize GPS and other geolocating strategies to prepare customer's drinks BEFORE they arrive at the pick-up window for drink delivery in 30 seconds or less per car.All customer orders, drink customizations, and payments are processed through our mobile ordering app.  Later on, we may add an iPad style kiosk out in the parking lot to allow people to or...
3. **Just want to confirm - I love the idea a ton, but obviously if you're starting off targeting only the Milwaukee area, 10% off coffee for one year won't help me very much, since I'm several thousand miles away... I assume there's no way to delay what year I'd get the investor d...**
   - If you do invest, we can probably work out a deal for your 10% discount to start once you're actually able to utilize our drive-thrus ; )California is high on our expansion plan list, but we're not likely to make it out there for a few years yet.  We need to launch/troubleshoot/refine our automation package and then focus on scaling manufacturing and franchising, which would likely coincide with California location launches.Yes, vandalism is on our radar.  We'll have plenty of camer...
4. **I really like the business model here, but I have to ask is there any IP or patents with this system? If this model were to work, what would stop the big brand coffee chains who already have large dedicated customer bases from simply deploying capital to make automated kiosks?**
   - We plan to file 2-3 Provisionary Patents before we publicly launch the system that will protect certain Process related IP.  We've dug into the patents of our competitors and found that there's a big lack of Product related patents, which confirms our early hypothesis: it's better NOT to file product patents that show exploded views of everything we've developed internally (basically showing off our secret sauce.While yes, the To-Go Coffee space is huge, we see this space divid...
5. **Really interesting stuff here! This is the way the future's going and love that your tackling this opportunity, especially in the time of COVID-19. A few quick questions: 1) Each "automation cell" store location is a essentially a shipping container crate? How does this affect...**
   - A few quick answers:1) Legally, our business is defined as a Vending Machine, but the drive-thru aspect complicates that a little bit as that requires local government approval for zoning and traffic safety.  We'll have cameras inside and outside of the unit monitoring everything, and spare parts on the shelf if vandalism does occur.2) Our current layout can be scaled up easily to accommodate 1000+ cups per day, the tricky part becomes system throughput (how many coffees p...

## Team
- Adrian Deasy (Founder and CEO)
- Burt Peterson (Controls Engineering Lead)
- Kyle Hamilton (Marketing and Social Media Lead)
- Alec Chan (Full Stack Developer (Web/Database/App))

## Q&A
- Q: Other Octane Coffee firms exist. Will you be able to trademark or copyright the name? What about all the other coffee firms with the same name out there?
  - A: Yes, we've filed the Wisconsin Trademark and Tradename documents for local protection of the 'Octane Coffee' name.  We're not 100% in love with the branding so it may change once we take the leap into franchising in 18-24 months as that will be the first time that most new customers ever hear about it.
- Q: I like the idea of the automation and it addresses lots of issues related to having employees including wage increases, taxes, liabilities, and reliability. However, I also have worked in industries that had automation and when automation fails there has to be a backup option. When a unit breaks down or stops production, your revenue stops. How do you intend to address that and what would be your expected mean time between failures?
  - A: Our founding team has 30+ years of design, build, launch, and long term support experience for industrial automation systems that run in some of the worst environments and without maintenance for long stretches of time.Issues with automated systems are inevitable so our solution is to have as much reliability and redundancy as possible built into the system from launch.  There are four coffee makers running in parallel and they share recipe info so two can go down before customers are impacted at all.  Cup/Lid/Syrup dispensers all have duplicated systems and actively monitor inventory so if a dispenser goes down, we immediately get text/e-mail alerts and status updates (i.e. 100 cups out of service, 600+ remain online, estimated 6-8 hours before service is required).We will be onsite for the first 4-6 months during the launch of our pilot drive-thru.  Our HQ and engineering offices are in the same shared space so we can respond immediately if the systems are having issues.  By the 6 month mark, we should have all of the hardware and software troubleshooted to allow for unattended production and 24/7/365 drink availability.
- Q: What's the range of coffee drinks that you can cover? Coffee culture has a wide range of recipes.
  - A: At launch we will have a broad menu of espresso based premium coffee drinks (latte, cappuccino, mocha, etc), four varieties of bean-to-cup brewed black coffee, as well as bottled teas, cold brew coffees, and cold pressed juices.For user customizations, we'll have 4-6 milk and creamer choices (whole, skim, half-and-half, and almond/oat for non-dairy), and 12 flavoring syrups on tap (vanilla, caramel, hazelnut, etc).We will be adding food items 6-9 months after the initial drive-thru launch, typical grab-and-go fare that is easy to eat while driving.
- Q: Hi Adrian, I invested in your company. I have a suggestion. In the future, what about t-shirts at the 100 dollar level? Why? Because you can get free advertising. Just imagine 4000 investors walking around with your t-shirts. Plus, most investors can only invest 2,400 yearly. Just a thought...Peter
  - A: I love the t-shirts idea and we are planning to hand out vinyl car stickers/swag to our early customers that will be more visible in our local launch area.  When we are expanding into new cities, this type of viral "What's That?" style marking is critical to growing our brand.
- Q: Automated fast serve coffee is a great concept. Venturing out to drone car delivery seems unneeded and too complex. Would you focus on scaling your core business nationally before funding drone delivery research?
  - A: Yes, the focus of the first 12-18 months is really just to dial in the drive-thru model and associated hardware.Regulations and Safety for drone delivery are still 3-5 years off and we won't be placing a huge emphasis on R&D until we've established our core business.
- Q: This looks like a promising idea, but I have a question on the financials presented on your slide deck. On page 23 you present two pie charts to show how you have arrived at 375% more profitable than traditional coffee shops. The question I have is really two-fold: 1) How did you derive the "material" cost averages (ex: flavor, lids, milk, etc.)? 2) Do the figures take into account bulk purchasing that a larger chain might be able to leverage to reduce those costs vs. what Octane will need to pay at the start as a smaller business? Thanks! JP
  - A: Answers are below:1) Our material COGS estimates are based on quoted costs from local vendors for beans, cups, and lids.  We tend to lean very conservative on our cost estimates and used full retail price for flavoring syrups and milk (those vendors wouldn't quote until we were ramping up to launch and had better volume estimates).2) Yes, we researched cost breakdowns for Starbucks, Dunkin', and Mom & Pop Coffee Shops to derive their COGS estimates.  They're definitely utilizing wholesale pricing and have much better per unit costs with their economies of scale.  The biggest costs to our competitors are their labor and overhead, which we've fundamentally reduced with our automation and drastic reduction in overhead and operating costs.
- Q: Really interesting stuff here! This is the way the future's going and love that your tackling this opportunity, especially in the time of COVID-19. A few quick questions: 1) Each "automation cell" store location is a essentially a shipping container crate? How does this affect your placement of stores vs. the usual physical store location a Starbucks might be (a true building)? Does this give you more location options vs. competitors? Also I don't imagine one would be steal-able but maybe more susceptible to damage..? Thoughts here? 2) Let's assume you are doing 1,000 cups a day. Does your "automation cell" location need to be revamped? Would your current model support such demand/capacity? 3) How much would you anticipate a franchise model to cost down the road? Some research shows a Dunkin' Donuts might cost $100k-200k and a Starbucks $300k. I would imagine the cost for an Octane would be more appealing? 4) Did Stone Creek Coffee make an investment? Or are they just partnering with you at the moment? 5) When is the deadline to reach the $100k goal? If you are not successful in fully reaching the goal on WeFunder, how does that affect those who did invest? 6) The $400k Seed Round already has $200k covered and you are looking to raise $100k on WeFunder. Where is the remaining $100k coming from? Thanks!
  - A: A few quick answers:1) Legally, our business is defined as a Vending Machine, but the drive-thru aspect complicates that a little bit as that requires local government approval for zoning and traffic safety.  We'll have cameras inside and outside of the unit monitoring everything, and spare parts on the shelf if vandalism does occur.2) Our current layout can be scaled up easily to accommodate 1000+ cups per day, the tricky part becomes system throughput (how many coffees per minute) and that's limited by the drive-thru flow.  The first big bottleneck is the robotic handling speed, I can only move so fast with cups full of liquid...  Adding a second robot would be the first major system upgrade, likely above 1200 cups per day.3) We found a contractor who built a few Starbucks drive-thrus in our area, they were $1.3M when completed with a $200k appliance package.  Our shipping container cell can be built for under $250k, with a drive-thru build-out (utilities piped in, pavement, curbs, landscaping, signage, lighting, etc) is estimated at $200k, so a total franchise would be ~$450k to open.  There are many lenders in the franchise space that will do loans with 25% or less down payment.4) Stone Creek Coffee is just a partner for now, there's some politics in play that limit their investment for now (they don't want it to look like they're trying to replace their human employees with robots at their 12+ successful cafes).5&6) We've had some huge recent developments and will be successfully closing the WeFunder campaign in January.  I can't speak more about it at this time but will update the WeFunder campaign page once things are set in stone.
- Q: Just want to confirm - I love the idea a ton, but obviously if you're starting off targeting only the Milwaukee area, 10% off coffee for one year won't help me very much, since I'm several thousand miles away... I assume there's no way to delay what year I'd get the investor discount for, until you're in my area? (I'm leaning towards investing anyway, though, it's such a great idea.) Also, any idea how long it might take until you *were* in my area? :) (My area being southern California, or even just California more broadly?) And just out of curiosity, if you're setting up for locations to be truly fully autonomous... Seems like the biggest concern with anything fully autonomous with no humans on the premise, but that's still consumer-facing, would be vandalism (people are jerks!) - just curious your thoughts? Thanks!
  - A: If you do invest, we can probably work out a deal for your 10% discount to start once you're actually able to utilize our drive-thrus ; )California is high on our expansion plan list, but we're not likely to make it out there for a few years yet.  We need to launch/troubleshoot/refine our automation package and then focus on scaling manufacturing and franchising, which would likely coincide with California location launches.Yes, vandalism is on our radar.  We'll have plenty of cameras pointing inside and outside the automated units to get ahead of any issues that arise.
- Q: Any updates or company status for Investors?
  - A: We're *almost* wrapped up on a $3M Seed Round, should have the big news to share soon. (We've been told to be quiet about by our legal counsel, sorry for the lack of updates).
- Q: If you choose to proceed with the franchise route will early investors, ie folks like us from Wefunder have a leg up on acquiring franchise licensing rights?
  - A: Yes, we'll make sure to offer franchising rights to our close circle of investors first, then to the broader public.
- Q: Will you be extending this round of funding ?
  - A: We secured an additional $170k commitment to close this Seed Round out at just above $400k total raised. We will not be extending the WeFunder Campaign.
- Q: The concept sounds great to me, but to express the skeptical side, I would think it would be something Starbucks and Dunkin' have thought about and looked into for quite some time. You mentioned the "politics" (the bad optics of replacing employees). Any other thoughts or knowledge on why they haven't pursued this strategy you're now pursuing?
  - A: Automation is expensive and very complicated to design, manufacture, and service. It's a huge risk for existing coffee shops to jump into when their existing business models are working and growing, why risk it? (We heard this a lot early on when we briefly tried to license and sell our systems to existing coffee shops).
- Q: Cleanup ? Fully automated; how will a potential customer feel safe to come to a place that is fully automated during pandemic ?
  - A: An Octane Coffee employee (or franchisee) still needs to stop by once per day for around 30 minutes to restock the unit and perform the daily cleaning routines (built into the coffee machines, NSF certified materials and cleaning processes). We're the only coffee shop that can guarantee that a human didn't touch your cup or lid, you never really know how many people are behind the counter at Starbucks.
- Q: What is the status of, and how much time/money do you expect to spend on the mobile app development and related server-side and kiosk software?
  - A: Our user facing App is 90% complete, still needs some UI/UX cleanup and our new menu items loaded.  The backend of the App, database, and communications down to the hardware are proven at a prototype level but need to be scaled up for full drive-thru implementation.We expect to spend 3-5 months and $30-50k to button it all up.  There are lots of features that we will add later on, the focus at launch is on the reliability of the hardware and speed of service to customers.
- Q: What day next week are you closing. Normally Wefunder gives a timed count down.
  - A: I haven't initiated the campaign wind down yet but I will next week.  It may run a few days longer with the countdown.