Valor Coffee, which is opening its second location in Dunwoody soon, has taken a different road to help defray construction costs – a crowdfunding campaign.
Using the fundraising website Indiegogo, Valor owners Ethan Rivers, Ross Walters, and Riley Westbrook started a 30-day campaign on Feb. 11 to raise $25,000 to “give all the Valor faithfuls out there a chance to be a part of making our Dunwoody café happen.”
With about two weeks to go, the effort has raised almost $18,000.
According to information on the Indiegogo site, Valor has a café in downtown Alpharetta that opened back in 2019 and a roasting headquarters in Roswell that opened at the tail end of 2020. The new 2,000-square-foot facility will be in Dunwoody Village, just a stone’s throw away from an always-crowded Starbuck’s coffee shop.
The concept of crowdsourcing is not new to the trio. The company raised $10,000 to fund its first mobile espresso cart in 2016.
“Our Mobile Cart helped us learn some business skills, save some capital, and build a following before we opened our Alpharetta cafe, which was also partly funded from an internal ‘Pay What You Want Campaign’ that included items such as Coffee for a Year,” the website said.
This campaign includes similar perks for donors. Those who donate $1,250 will receive free unlimited coffee for a year. Givers at the $250 level receive wholesale pricing on Valor’s website for a year. Lower levels of giving offer incentives like t-shirts, stickers, mugs, and other coffee packages.
“As we all know, everything is more expensive these days, plus this space is just way bigger (almost three times the size of our first cafe), but we really think details matter, down to the smallest intentional moments, and crowdfunding some extra cash will help us make Dunwoody just as magical as Alpharetta,” the website said.
An official opening date has not been announced, but the funding website promises distribution of the incentives in March.
