Bulletproof coffee, which features butter from grass-fed cows and energy-rich oil in combination with your java, is now taking on some serious venture capital funding to bring the startup to the next level. Bulletproof founder and CEO, Dave Asprey, told VentureBeat, “I want to build a $1 billion global brand, not an e-commerce website that reached a few hundred thousand people.” And to do that, he needed more money.
“There are more risks by going with a venture model, but I feel an obligation to share knowledge like this,” continued Asprey. “Because I was fat, my brain wasn’t working, my body hurt all the time, and I didn’t find this information, so I believe that when I’m as successful as I can be with Bulletproof that there will be measurable changes in the quality of our nation’s health. But yeah, that takes money.”
And Asprey has done his research — at least on himself. For the last decade and a half, he has “hacked” himself, spending some $300,000 on measuring his own physical and mental performance, and has lost a total of 100 pounds and gained IQ points (something I didn’t know was possible). Asprey also believes that he is more mentally aware than before, though skeptics will question that particular claim (among others).
But still, Bulletproof Coffee, which began as nothing more than a fad in 2011, now has a serious following and some serious funding as well, and will soon — hopefully — have a physical location on Main Street in Santa Monica, California. As Dan Schlonick, a partner at Trinity Ventures, the firm that wrote Asprey the sizable check told Fortune, “All of us were really excited to see Dave turn Bulletproof into a real company.”
And we’re excited to see what happens when all of America starts drinking buttered coffee.
