Tuesday, July 10, 2007

MooBella scoops up $25M in first VC round

Almost a year and a half after launching its first self-contained ice cream vending system, Taunton's MooBella LLC reports it has landed its first round of institutional funding, pulling in $25 million.

The funding was provided by W. Health LP, a venture fund managed by Inventages Venture Capital Investment Inc. The deal includes the addition of Erich Sieber, an Inventages partner, to MooBella's board of directors. Inventages is an international venture capital firm with offices in the Bahamas, Switzerland and New Zealand.

The new funding will be used to expand the locations of the company's machines and build distribution and strategic partnerships, according to company officials.

MooBella's ice cream machine combines food distribution and technology in a stand-alone vending system that creates fresh, hard-packed ice cream in less than one minute. While the company launched its first pilot machines in New England in February 2006, including at Brandeis University and at Children's Hospital Boston, company documents say the commercial rollout will begin near the end of 2007.

The machine features a variety of technological advances and has been granted six foreign patents and 12 U.S. patents, including a "business process" patent. The unit's interface and operational platform is PC-based, and also features wireless capabilities that can send information such as sales number, inventory and operational status back to a centralized management location.