Sansaire
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Sansaire was a Seattle-based startup that made sous vide cooking devices for home chefs. Its flagship Sansaire Sous Vide Machine became the most-funded food project in Kickstarter history at the time, raising over $823,000 in September 2013. The company later developed the Delta, a second-generation WiFi-connected sous vide device funded by another Kickstarter campaign in 2016.
02 / Sansaire FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Sansaire was undone by manufacturing problems and a crowded market. Its relationship with the new production facility for the Delta device broke down, exhausting available funding and manufacturing routes, and the company could not secure outside capital to pay for production. At the same time it struggled to build its brand against bigger rivals like Anova in an increasingly competitive consumer sous vide market, and it never managed to ship the second-generation product.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Product launch
Sansaire launched its flagship sous vide machine on Kickstarter in September 2013, raising over $823,000 and becoming the most-funded food project in the platform's history at the time.
- Product launch
The company ran a second Kickstarter campaign in fall 2016 for the Delta, a WiFi-connected successor, raising $256,804 from 1,314 backers with a promised spring 2017 ship date.
- Closure announced
On February 21, 2018, CEO Lukas Svec told backers the company would cease Delta development and close its doors, blaming a broken manufacturing relationship and exhausted funding; it planned a 12-month wind-down supporting warranties.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Launch a hit sous vide machine on Kickstarter in 2013.
- 02
Crowdfund a WiFi-connected successor, the Delta, in 2016.
- 03
Delay production after switching manufacturing partners and fail to raise outside capital.
- 04
Announce shutdown in February 2018, with no second-generation product ever shipped.