Ember's first Indiegogo The campaign attracted sideways glances when it launched in 2015. Would anyone actually buy a $129 cup of hot coffee? However, nearly a decade later, it has become clear that the initial offering was just the tip of the startup's heating/cooling iceberg.
TechCrunch recently sat down with Clay Alexander, the company's founder and CEO, to delve into Ember's history — and take a look at where things are headed.
“We have crossed 3 million units [of the smart mug] “At this point,” the executive tells TechCrunch. “We're approaching a million units a year now. When I first created this technology, there were a lot of people in my life saying, 'Hey Clay, you're never going to sell a $100 e-cup of coffee.' You're out of your mind. As a founder, you just have to be smart.” With perseverance, you must have intuition that trumps logic.
The prototype for the Ember Mug was a Frankensteinian prototype that included a Zojirushi mug and a set of electronics. Image credits: Amber
Besides the company's most popular coffee pot, Ember has made a foray into the medical sector with the Ember Cube, a shipping box for items that need to be temperature controlled – primarily medications. They now make heated baby bottles as well.
“I always tell people that cooling is a lot harder than heating. Heating is fairly simple because you can create a heater with a resistive heating element or a resistive heating wire. I mean, you can just put in electricity and any wire. It's going to get hot, right?” However, refrigeration is a different beast, Alexander notes. “People don't realize that you're not pumping cold energy into the refrigerator, you're actually pulling heat energy out of the box.”
Beginnings
Ember's inception can be traced back to a moment of frustration associated with it: a lukewarm cup of coffee. A self-proclaimed coffee enthusiast, Alexander yearned for a solution to maintain the perfect temperature of his favorite beverage from first sip to last. The road to bringing Ember back to life was a difficult one. As a hardware startup, Ember faced unique obstacles that often prevent entrepreneurs from venturing into this space. From high product development and manufacturing costs to the complex web of intellectual property protection and international expansion, Alexander navigated a maze of challenges that would test his resolve and determination.
Despite the obstacles, Alexander remained steadfast. He assembled a team of engineers, designers and marketers who shared his passion for creating a product that would enhance the coffee drinking experience and push the boundaries of what was possible in consumer technology. As Ember began to take shape, Alexander and his team spent countless hours in research and development, testing different materials and technologies until they arrived at a solution that met their requirements. The result is a sleek, intuitive mug that can maintain a precise temperature for hours, controlled through a simple smartphone app. In fact, 2,000 backers rallied to the idea on Indiegogo, giving the company a $360,000 cash infusion and its first hint of market validation. Soon after, the company raised a series of equity rounds, including a $13 million Series C and a $23 million Series E.
Balancing form and function was an early challenge familiar to anyone in the hardware business. The mug is essential for effectively maintaining temperature while being visually attractive and comfortable to hold. After extensive testing and refinement, Ember finally settled on a sleek, simple design that seamlessly integrates heating technology into the cup's walls. The mug also features wireless charging, customizable temperature settings, and a smartphone app that allows users to control it remotely.
Then there's the challenge of actually bringing the product to market. Unlike software development, hardware development requires a significant upfront investment in materials, tools, and manufacturing processes. As Alexander points out, these costs can balloon quickly, putting enormous pressure on startups to secure funding and generate revenue as quickly as possible.
Across the sea
Once a product is developed, hardware startups must navigate the complex world of intellectual property protection. In a highly competitive market, protecting innovations is critical to long-term success, but securing patents and trademarks can be time-consuming and expensive. This can be a difficult prospect for startups with limited resources, requiring careful strategizing and prioritization.
At some point, Ember saw a great opportunity, which turned out to be quite a challenge. Up to this point, the cups were already on sale at Starbucks and other high-end retail stores. But then, one of the largest and most influential retailers in the world came knocking.
“We were expanding not just in the US, it took us about two years to get to an Apple store – the amount of testing they put your product through is enormous – and the amount of times I traveled to Cupertino… but it was worth it.” “But Apple doesn't like to do local launches,” Alexander recalls. If they like your product, and you've passed all their tests, they come to you and say: OK, we want to do this on a global scale.
At the time, Ember was only shipping to North America, but when Apple knocked on their door and said it wanted to start selling their product in 27 countries, they asked not whether or not to jump, but how high to jump.
A prototype of a portable medical cooler created in collaboration with Mayo Clinic in 2018. Image credit: Ember
“I remember going to my operations team and saying, ‘Guys, Apple is going to come to us with a silver platter that will turn us into a global brand overnight. Are we going to do this?’ It was like two weeks of whiteboarding and panic.” Blind,” Alexander laughs. “In the end, we just said, 'You know, you only live once, so let's do it,' and that was the most painful year of our lives. We went from North America to 27 countries with Apple.
As Ember began expanding internationally, Alexander and his team faced challenges of navigating the regulatory landscape of different countries, securing reliable manufacturing partners, and adapting to local market conditions. Each challenge requires a deep understanding of the global hardware ecosystem. Alexander attributes Ember's success in this field to the strength of his team and their willingness to learn and adapt quickly.
Going from hot to cold
While Ember's smart cup has been a huge success in the consumer market, the company's ambitions extend beyond hot beverages.
A prototype of a cylindrical medical cooler was developed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic. This concept was from 2019. Image credits: Ember
I love selling coffee cups, don't get me wrong, but the ability to save lives was something we could all rally around. Clay Alexander
“I remember thinking: What can we do with our temperature control technology to help save lives?” “I've seen us become very successful in the consumer space,” Alexander explains. “I had Wyatt Decker, the CEO of Mayo Clinic in Arizona, on my board. It was really great to have a top healthcare executive on our board. And he was inviting us to the Mayo Clinic. And we were sitting there in these conference rooms with the doctors and scientists Our idea was to discover how our temperature control technology could help solve pain points in healthcare, whether it's medicine, moving organs, or whatever else you have.
Alexander and his team returned to the lab to begin tackling the challenges they had discovered, putting dozens upon dozens of patents to good use. The company says that today it has obtained more than 200 patents, almost all of them in the field of temperature control, whether it is semiconductor cooling technologies, heating technologies, or control systems to manage it all.
This work led to the Ember Cube, a device that promises to solve one of the most pressing challenges in the medical field. Many drugs, especially those used in cancer treatment and vaccine distribution, require precise temperature control to maintain their effectiveness. Even slight deviations from the optimal temperature range can render these drugs useless or harmful. The Ember Cube addresses this problem by providing a portable, highly accurate and temperature-controlled environment for storing and transporting sensitive medications. Utilizing the same spirit used in its Smart Cups, the Ember Cube maintains a precise temperature range, ensuring that the medications inside remain viable and effective.
The Ember Cube dashboard allows shippers to see medications in transit in near real-time, as well as temperature readings. Image credits: Amber
If implemented correctly, this technology can be a game-changer. By enabling safe and efficient distribution of temperature-sensitive medications, the Ember Cube can help improve access to life-saving treatments in remote or underserved areas. It can also reduce the cost and complexity of vaccine distribution, a critical consideration in the face of global health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Once you have the technology, a lot of opportunities start to appear. For example, the US Anti-Doping Agency revealed that it is using EMBER technology ahead of the 2024 Olympic Team Trials.
Alexander notes that he sees the development of the Ember Cube as a natural progression of Ember's mission to use technology to solve real-world problems. By applying its expertise in temperature control to the medical field, Ember is poised to make a tangible difference in the lives of patients around the world.
External rotation
The decision to split Ember into two distinct divisions – Consumer and Life Sciences – was a strategic move designed to allow each branch of the company to focus on its core competencies and target markets. By creating a dedicated life sciences division, Ember can direct its resources and talent toward developing new applications for its technology in the medical field, from improving vaccine storage and transportation to enabling more precise temperature control in laboratory environments.
This division enables the company to serve different classes of customers – both from a product and investor standpoint – and the company has appointed a former Dyson executive (Jim Rowan) as CEO of its consumer division.
“About a year and a half ago, we actually rolled out Ember Life Sciences as a standalone entity,” Alexander says. The company initially maintained the same cap table for both companies but allowed the two entities to diverge beyond that cap. “It has allowed us to raise capital from the healthcare sector, and we are very proud of some of our equity partners. Carrier – the world's largest manufacturer of commercial refrigeration equipment – is our investor. We also have some other investors in the healthcare space. By rotating it, We can attract equity investments and board members in life sciences, healthcare, etc., unlike when we lumped them all together.
From cold to very cold indeed
“We're actually trying to move into cell and gene therapy with cryogenic charging,” Alexander joked, showing me a photo of the prototype device. Then he swears me to secrecy, saying I can't share the photo I saw.
As Alexander looks to the future, it is full of excitement and possibility.
The Ember Cube can keep products at 5°C (41°F) for 72 hours. The company's next step is cryogenic shipping, where the temperature must remain at -150°C (-238°F) for long periods.
“Negative 150 degrees Celsius is no joke. It's a hell of a thing. We use liquid nitrogen, and the cargo box has a sponge-like material, so the nitrogen is absorbed into the walls. If it capsizes, nothing comes out, it's a dry cargo ship,” says Alexander. It's a huge engineering challenge. You have to do it in a vacuum, and it's all very complex engineering.
Alexander says the cryogenic charging device will take about 18 months to be available as a commercial product, but the Ember team is excited about its progress so far.
“We performed a thermal chamber test and were able to keep the load under 150°C for 10 days,” explains Alexander. “The target audience for this is cell and gene therapy – high-tech medicine that cures cancer and saves lives. Talk about something that feels good as a brand, right? I love selling coffee cups, don’t get me wrong, but the ability to save lives was something we could all do.” To rally for him.
