Largest Kickstarter Campaign Ever “Coolest Cooler” Announces Upgrades, Pushes Back Ship Date

In a note to supporters, Coolest Cooler creator Ryan Grepper announced a list of product upgrades along with a change in expected shipping dates.  As it stands today, Coolest Cooler will ship early Summer 2015 “probably July”.  This contrasts the originally scheduled ship date of February 2015. Delivery delays for crowdfunding campaigns is the norm and the scale of delivery for the Cooler is rather significant.

The Coolest Cooler originally launched its crowdfunding campaign during the winter of 2013.  The campaign failed to hit its $125,000 crowdfunding goal and closed just shy of this amount.  Instead of calling it quits, Grepper decided to revamp this crowdfunding project. He set the initial goal considerably lower and proceeded to easily blast past the $50K target.   Today Coolest Cooler stands as the largest crowdfunding campaign ever on Kickstarter having raised over $13.2 million.

The Coolest Cooler now needs to ship approximately 62,000 coolers and during the interim period as organizers finalize product specs and manufacturing partners the Coolest Cooler has enhanced some features.  Grepper states the new features will boost the retail price, once the Coolest Cooler is in stores, to approximately $399.00. The new features include:

• Upgraded 20V Rechargable Lithium Battery. The engineering team has upgraded the original NiMH battery to a rechargeable lithium polymer battery (LiPO) so it lasts longer, charges faster and works better.
• Upgraded Custom Bluetooth Speaker. A custom-made Bluetooth Outdoor Speaker with dual drivers, 5-watts, and a resonator plate for as much bass, volume and clarity. Plus, a Bluetooth 4.0 Party Pairing feature let’s you stream music from one phone to two speakers up to 30 feet apart!
• Upgraded Blender. The Coolest’s built-in, 20 volt ice-crushing blender will power through more than 6 gallons of blended goodness on a single charge.
• Upgraded Accessory Deck. The original front panel left your phone and speaker exposed. Now your speaker, phone, keys and wallet are safely secured and hidden from view in the Accessory Deck compartment.
• Upgraded Materials. Most of the materials on the Coolest will be even more high quality, from upgraded tires, stronger stainless steel hinges, a new magnetic bottle cap catcher, and more.
• Upgraded Performance. They have tested thousands of blend cycles optimizing the battery/motor/blender combination so it will work year after year. They have increased insulation and reduced rolling resistance.  

Backers may expect another detailed update this coming January.  Coolest Cooler recently partnered with Dragon Innovation a company that assists products on their production and shipping needs. Dragon has worked with big name crowdfunding projects like Pebble Watch so Coolest is in good hands.