Bulletproof Coffee Café Raises $9 Million to Serve Butter Coffee to the Masses

The café is set to open in Los Angeles.

Is butter coffee here to stay? One venture capital firm certainly thinks so and is willing to bet millions of dollars on it. Earlier this year, tech investor and "biohacker" Dave Asprey announced that he would be opening a café in Los Angeles that will sell his butter-laced Bulletproof Coffee. He claims that his coffee beans are "upgraded" and that adding butter, as well as his patented XCT oil to the drink, will "boost mental performance," and in some cases, aid in weight loss. The coffee impressed California-based venture capital firm Trinity Ventures — which has also invested in Starbucks and Jamba Juice — so much that it is now giving Asprey $9 million to open the Bulletproof Coffee Café.

"We want to make that heightened state of mindfulness and performance accessible to millions of consumers."

Trinity VC Gus Tai explains the investment in a press release: "Starbucks captured the devotion of a generation and became everyone's home away from home because its brand was all about changing one's environment and melting away stress... Similarly, Bulletproof is about changing the inside world of your mind and body. We want to make that heightened state of mindfulness and performance accessible to millions of consumers." It probably helps too that Asprey used to work at Trinity Ventures before he branched out to start his biohacking empire. (Asprey has written a number of books, runs a popular podcast, and recently made a documentary all about the topic.)

While Tai is eager to compare Bulletproof Coffee to Starbucks, Asprey tells Business Insider that is not the aim of the café: "The goal is not to be the next Starbucks. The goal is to take this idea of biohacking and bring it to people in a way that they can feel it and bring it into their daily habits. It's basically an upgrade to what you do in the morning."

Asprey isn't stopping at coffee: The press release adds that he is biohacking water. Asprey claims that his new FATwater "provides a new kind of powerful hydration using clean-burning energy from quality fat." It is made by mixing his Bulletproof XCT oil with purified water using nano-fusion technology.

While Trinity Ventures is drinking the (likely butter-laced) Kool-Aid that Asprey is serving, skeptics abound. Many claim that Bulletproof coffee is just an "extreme fad diet" and that there is "absolutely zero evidence to support Asprey's claims that his coffee has fewer toxins or provides better performance."

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