Founding duo Max Huber and Moritz Schüller presented their Beezer, a beverage cooler designed to bring everything from cans to wine bottles to the perfect drinking temperature in just a few minutes. The Beezer achieves this with the help of a compressor-based cooling unit. This allows the air inside the device to reach temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius. The cold air flows around the bottle, which in turn rotates on its axis to ensure even cooling.
Another argument the founders wanted to use was energy savings. On-demand cooling eliminates the need for long advance cooling times and can thus save up to 90 percent of energy costs for beverage cooling, according to Schüller. The business economist and his tech co-founder envisioned both the B2B and B2C sectors as potential customers for their Beezer. The Beezer is suitable for the average consumer who wants to spontaneously sweeten a summer evening with a bottle of wine, as well as for the restaurant or food retail industry.
On the Manufacturer's website It also claims that the Beezer is "10 times faster than your freezer." To prove it, the founders presented two room-temperature champagne bottles. They placed one in a freezer compartment, the other in the Beezer – where they only had to adjust the bottle size and cooling level. After a few minutes, the jury members confirmed: The bottle from the Beezer was indeed significantly colder than the one from the freezer.
Too expensive and no buyers
But the enthusiasm didn't last long. Huber and Schüller hoped for an investment of 500,000 euros for a 10 percent stake in their company. Given this high valuation, the Lions had some questions. It turned out that production of the Beezer hadn't started yet, and accordingly, no units had been sold yet. Furthermore, the two founders revealed that they had financed the development of the Beezer together with an external investor, a household appliance manufacturer. Consequently, they only hold a 63 percent stake in their GmbH, with the rest belonging to the company – information that the jury members greeted with skepticism.
Nils Glagau was the first to clearly decide against investing. He could not see any demand for the Beezer in the hospitality industry or among end consumers. Tillman Schulz agreed with his fellow jury member. The retail price of 600 euros was also considered acceptable by the “The Lion’s Den”The jury concluded that the project was too expensive for end customers. Ralf Dümmel and Carsten Maschmeyer therefore also rejected an investment. Dagmar Wöhrl summarized the concerns again:
"I'm simply missing too many pieces of the puzzle—the company's valuation is far too high because at the moment there's only a prototype. You're not producing yet, and if you have to order 25,000 units, you need a warehouse from which you can manage logistics. I also don't see the target audience."
“Beezer has the perfect founding couple”
Janna Ennstaler took a more conciliatory tone when she said:
“I think you are the perfect founding couple and I see your entrepreneurship.”
Nevertheless, she refused to participate:
“It’s not something I care about so much that I would put all my energy and strength into it.”
Nevertheless, they recognize the product's potential for the restaurant industry and are eager to continue following the development of the Beezer. The two founders took the deal, which didn't materialize, in good spirits. Max Huber said in an interview after the pitch:
"This wasn't the first setback, and it certainly won't be the last. That's why we're taking as much as we can with us, reflecting as much as we can, and emerging stronger from this."
