译自 Market Watch.com 上的VC专栏，感觉美国的酸奶大战有几分像当初国内热炒“掉渣烧饼”和普洱茶的情况啊。~

Street fight between emerging 'Fro-Yo ' Rivals

 

 

By Scott Austin
6:04 PM ET Oct 30, 2007

 

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- On Bleecker Street, one of the main arteries in Manhattan's Greenwich Village near where I live, a food fight is about to break out.

 

在Bleecker 街，曼哈顿格林威治镇的一条主干道上，一场食品大战就要打响。

 

Amid a stretch of rowdy college bars and pizza joints, two rival frozen yogurt chains will go head-to-head across the street from each other.

 

在一段遍布学生酒吧和比萨连锁店的街上，两家酸奶连锁店即将开始面对面的竞争。

 

It's expected to get ugly. Pinkberry and Red Mango both attract fanatical crowds in Southern California, where they also compete.

 

这竞争可能会闹得有些难看，Pinkberry 和 Red Mango两家在南加州对决时就吸引了众多狂热的人群。

 

Behind the passion are two venture capital firms eager to crown their start-up the "fro-yo" champ.

 

狂热背后，浮现出两家风投的影子，它们都希望自己的投资的创业企业能在冷冻酸奶业独占鳌头。

 

In the pink corner is Maveron, a Seattle firm that just invested $27 million in Los Angeles-based Pinkberry. That's a sizable bet on what some are calling a fad that flashes back to the 1980s, when frozen yogurt was all the rage. It's also a large
scoop of money for a firm that typically invests $5 million to $10 million per investment. But Maveron, co-founded in 1988 by Starbucks Corp.  Chairman Howard Schultz, believes it has the know-how to take Pinkberry to the next level.

 

粉红色的这边是Maveron，西雅图的一家公司，它向洛杉矶的Pinkberry 投资了2700万美元。这是一场令人咋舌的赌博，因为有些人把冷冻酸奶的流行称为1980年代的复古时尚；这又是一笔数目可观的投资，因为该公司以往在每个项目上的投入不过500到1000万美元。Maveron 在1988年由星巴克入股建立，主席Howard Schultz 相信他有办法把Pinkberry 发展到一个新高度。

 

Maveron usually backs innovative technology-minded start-ups (eBay Inc. and Shutterfly Inc. are two of its best investments). But it did help transform Potbelly Sandwich Works from a small antique store on Chicago's North Side into a popular chain of 140 fast-food restaurants known for cheap sandwiches.

 

Maveron 喜欢创新型的高科技创业公司(eBay Inc. 和 Shutterfly Inc.是其最成功的两次投资)，但它也帮助 Potbelly 三明治工厂实现了成功转型。那家芝加哥北部的小糕点作坊，现在已经是以实惠三明治著称、拥有140家餐厅的连锁企业了。

 

Pinkberry, founded in 2005 by two Korean-born business partners, owns 28 stores in the Los Angeles area and five in New York (the Bleecker Street one opened this summer). Maveron co-founder Dan Levitan, a former investment banker who helped guide
Starbucks to a public offering, told VentureWire that Pinkberry will continue to expand in New York while also adding locations in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley area. That's great news for the paparazzi, which often lurks about a Pinkberry to catch celebrities like Paris Hilton holding a cup of the swirly dessert.

 

Pinkberry 由两个韩裔合伙人与2005年创建，在洛杉矶地区拥有28家店铺，纽约有5家(Bleecker 街这家今年夏天刚开业)。Maveron 的创始人之一，Dan Levitan，曾作为投资银行家参与了星巴克的上市工作。他告诉 VentureWire ，Pinkberry将在纽约继续扩张，并向旧金山和硅谷推进。这对八卦记者而言也是好消息，他们喜欢躲在Pinkberry 周围，去捕捉帕里斯·希尔顿那样的名人手拿一个甜筒的照片。

 

In the red corner is Stone Canyon Venture Partners, a small Beverly Hills-based firm that earlier this year quietly invested a few million dollars in Red Mango. This company started selling sour-style yogurt in Korea in 2004 and claims Pinkberry is
its imitator. Red Mango began making a serious push into the U.S. this year. Its Web site lists three stores (Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Bellevue, Wash.) but declares 23 more will open up soon across seven states.

 

红色的这边是Stone Canyon Venture Partners，那是贝弗利山的一家小公司，今年初开始暗中向Red Mango 投资了几百万。Red Mango 从2004年开始在韩国销售优酸乳，并宣称Pinkberry 抄袭它们。今年公司开始向美国扩张，它的网站上只列出了3家店(洛杉矶，拉斯维加斯和华盛顿州的Bellevue)，但7个州的23家新店已经在公司的计划之中。

 

Indeed, the fro-yo fight is fierce. The menus of Pinkberry and Red Mango are strikingly similar -- both offer just two kinds of frozen yogurt, plain and green tea, along with toppings like blueberries, almonds and Cap'n Crunch cereal. Even their Web sites look alike. Meanwhile a bunch of similar-sounding competitors have sprung up around Southern California, like  Kiwiberri, Yogurberry and Roseberry. And just around the corner from Pinkberry on Bleecker Street in New York is a brand-new
chain, Yolato, that sells "yogurt gelato."

 

事实上，酸奶大战十分残酷。两家店的菜单惊人地相似——都提供两种口味的冷冻酸奶，香草的和绿茶的，顶上放蓝莓、杏仁和碎麦片，两家的网站看起来也很像。与此同时，一批听起来差不多的竞争者也如雨后春笋般在南加州冒出来，比如Kiwiberri, Yogurberry 和 Roseberry什么的。在纽约Bleecker 街角的Pinkberry 附近，就新开了一家叫Yolato 的新连锁店，它们卖的东西叫"酸奶gelato"。

 

It's an emerging flavor for venture capitalists to dip into. VCs are better known for targeting high-tech industries and avoid simple concepts that can easily be replicated (save for the rudimentary social-networking sites we're seeing).

 

风投资本家都争先恐后地涌进这个有情调的新行业。可在以前，风投关注的还是那些高科技产业，避免接触那些可以简单复制的概念(那些未发展壮大的社交网站可不算)。

 

Then again, Starbucks raised about $30 million in venture capital in the early 1990s to get off the ground, before it quickly filed for an initial public offering in 1992 with just 135 stores (today it has more than 13,000). Frozen yogurt may never match the addictive nature of coffee, but perhaps Pinkberry and Red Mango will grow in the mold of Jamba Inc.

 

重温一下星巴克的故事吧：1990年代初，图谋发展的星巴克筹到了3000万美元风险投资，并在1992年以135家店的规模成功上市，现在已经超过了13000家。喝酸奶可能不会像喝咖啡那么上瘾，但Pinkberry 和 Red Mango 都要按Jamba Inc. 的战略发展。

 

The operator of the Jamba Juice smoothie chain sought to define the smoothie category the way Starbucks did with coffee. It began raising venture capital in 1994 and over the years took in more than $50 million from a large group of traditional
venture investors, such as August Capital, Benchmark Capital, Oak Investment Partners and Trinity Ventures, also an investor in Starbucks. But Jamba took longer than expected to reach an exit for these firms: in 2006, shell company Service Acquisition Corp. International swallowed Jamba for $265 million in cash, not leading to stellar returns by most accounts. (It's not entirely clear how they made out, since some institutional investors reinvested at the time.)

 

果汁连锁企业 Jamba 的老板希望在饮料业中树立星巴克在咖啡馆业中那样的地位。公司从1994年开始筹集风投资金，这些年来已经从August Capital, Benchmark Capital, Oak Investment Partners 和 Trinity Ventures 等那些大风投那里弄到了5000万美元，当然也包括星巴克。但Jamba 从这些公司退出恐怕需要更长时间：2006年，壳公司国际服务业并购集团用2亿6500万美元现金收购了Jamba ，而不是吃分红.(目前还不清楚他们怎样退出，因为一些机构投资者当时又追加了资金)。

 

Jamba now operates a smoothie empire of more than 600 stores, many of which are tucked away in strip malls. But it's been reporting lackluster financial results and its stock has repeatedly hit 52-week lows. Many analysts say Jamba needs to branch
out from its products, which don't carry the habit-forming quality of caffeinated beverages and are threatened by mounting competition from fast-food chains. Indeed, the company has been testing some new breakfast foods in New York and Los Angeles.
 
Jamba 旗下现在有一个超过600家连锁店的饮料帝国，大部分坐落在购物商场内。但目前它的财务状况很不好，股价也多次跌至一年内的最低点。很多分析师表示Jamba 需要将产品群进行细分，抛弃那些含咖啡因的成瘾型饮料，规避那些快餐店里的竞争。实际上，公司也开始在纽约和洛杉矶试验新的早餐产品。

 

The menus of Pinkberry and Red Mango are rather simplistic, which will allow the start-ups to expand rapidly but will make it hard to maintain the public's long-term attention, especially in suburban environments where trendy boutiques don't always
work. The companies will no doubt try to appeal to the health-conscious consumer but have to be careful not to become too ubiquitous too soon.

 

Pinkberry 和Red Mango 的菜单过于简单，这方便了新店的迅速扩张，但无法对消费者产生持续的吸引力，尤其是在那种人们不大注意时尚小店的郊区。毫无疑问，这两家公司会迎合那些关注健康的消费者的口味，但他们必须留意，不要一下子变成地摊货。

 

It'll be interesting to see if other venture capitalists head into the food-service space based on these investments. For now, I'm eager to watch how the small-scale fro-yo fight will play out on Bleecker Street.

 

看到风险投资商进入食品-服务行业是件有意思的事情。比方说现在，我就特想看看那些酸奶小店是怎么在Bleecker 街上斗法的呢。