Coolest Cooler Says They Don't Have the Money to Make All The Coolers They Promised

The Portland-area maker of the Coolest Cooler—the most successful Kickstarter project ever in 2014, when it received $13 million in backing—is in hot water yet again, after announcing evenmore delays before most backers receive coolers with speakers and a blender built in.

The problem? Coolest appears to lack the funds to produce all the coolers promised.

The Coolest began shipping its "party in a cooler" in July 2015, but has so far delivered just over 20,000 of the 60,000 coolers paid for by backers, says spokesperson Susan Towers.

In November, Coolest had begun delivery of Coolers numbering "in the thousands" to Amazon Launchpad—which received coolers before many original backers, many of whom had paid a steeply discounted $165, compared to a retail price of $499. Coolest had to discontinue the Amazon program after the backers complained mightily.

In an update February 26, Coolest wrote that there would be additional delays because of what Towers calls a "funding gap."

"We realized that the Coolest was going to cost more than the Kickstarter pledges," she tells WW. "You try to walk this balance and be upfront and transparent and hope that people won't panic."

The Coolest hired an investment bank last year, says Towers—although they have not yet gotten the money.

The blog Crowdfund Insider first broke the news of Coolest's funding issues February 29, publishing excerpts from a the backer letter.

Towers blames some of the Cooler's troubles on the money they got from backers. "It's difficult to negotiate terms when the world knows what money you've raised," she says.

At TechfestNW last year, Coolest founder Ryan Grepper detailed his difficulties after the enormous success of the Kickstarter campaign.

Those difficulties apparently continue.

In their backer note, Coolest provided a graphic showing how their money got spent on factors other than production—but has not disclosed the size of their funding deficit. (In tiny print, the bar showing the funding deficit is asterisked as "not to scale")

Here's the full statement released by Coolest to backers:

Willamette Week