SUPPORT OUR WORLD CLASS CHOCOLATE SHOP!

GoFundMe Campaign Update:

Dear Supporters,

We’ve stopped accepting donations for this effort. Your unwavering support for our building acquisition dream has warmed our hearts. However, our journey since the campaign's launch has been riddled with unexpected hurdles.

Our vision was clear: a new building to better serve you, offer jobs, and conduct training in chocolate arts—all part of our mission to diversify the rich world of chocolate. Despite our proactive efforts, including placing bids on two properties, we faced setbacks. One bid was narrowly outbid, and another potential building was auctioned for a sum within our budget, but we missed out due to a lack of immediate liquidity.

The current economic landscape, coupled with the pandemic's blow to small businesses, has prompted us to re-strategize. While we remain passionate about acquiring our own space, our immediate priority is to nurture and optimize our existing setup.

For those who envisioned their contributions going specifically towards a building, we respect your wishes. If you'd prefer a refund due to this pivot, please reach out at: www.cocovaa.com. While we'll keep seeking a building, our current focus is on retaining our hard-earned progress.

With gratitude,

Vata & Family

Intro: I'm Syovata Edari, founder of CocoVaa Chocolatier, single mom, trial lawyer, winner of 30 Academy of Chocolate awards. I’d like to introduce CocoVaa to those who don’t know us: We are a family business who produce premium fine chocolate out of our small shop in Madison, Wisconsin in the U.S.A. I initially started this company as a means to create economic independence for myself as a single mom, while pursuing my passion for the chocolate arts, which was a hobby and an artistic endeavor that I mastered over years in the background of a busy law practice.

After intensive training in France and Italy, I launched my fine chocolate company in 2016 in Madison, Wisconsin, never realizing that it would grow to transcend its original mission as a “passion project.” CocoVaa quickly gained a loyal local and international following because of our unique and innovative flavor profiles. Drawing on our own multicultural background, CocoVaa has used chocolate as a vehicle to bring many worlds together, celebrating diversity by paying homage to global cuisine.

In the first 3 years of our business we won 30 awards in the Academy of Chocolate Awards - the world’s longest running and most prestigious global fine chocolate competition. Since then, CocoVaa has continued to gain notoriety globally while providing national distribution of our products and a beautiful space for our local community to congregate and engage with us around fine chocolate. Our customers agree that CocoVaa is a sanctuary of diversity that welcomes everyone.

How we got here and where we are going:

After winning our first batch of international awards, in 2018, I took a huge leap of faith, and sank everything I had into building our current retail and production space in Madison, Wisconsin. However, I faced challenges right out of the gate, many which would have been eliminated if I owned the space I operate in. Then the COVID pandemic hit, kicking us back to square one. Despite that, we’ve grown, mainly because of a boom in e-commerce demand and our growing popularity.

In order to reach our full potential we need space. Our current model as a small mom-shop crammed into a 1400 square foot space, with only a 500 square foot production kitchen, has become unsustainable and cuts us off from being able to engage with the community in a more impactful way. With limited space, production demands frequently supersede our service to the public. When we ship we have to close our retail and when we run our retail we can’t ship. Limited space limits our hiring capacity. We are at maximum output, given current resources.

Explosive growth is hampered only by lack of adequate funding. While we face the same challenges that most small businesses face, including unexpected COVID debt and rising costs, there are additional barriers we face that many other businesses don’t. Since our inception, CocoVaa, a completely independently owned business, has been self financed because of the tremendous barriers to accessing capital, something that’s only become worse with more stringent lending criteria that block many small businesses from securing non-predatory loans in our post-COVID economy.

Ask: We plan to purchase or build at least a 5000 square foot facility that will allow us the space to grow; where we can continue to have a welcoming retail presence/community space; and where we can scale our production, implement a shipping staging area, and a training program to cultivate a skilled workforce. The cost for this project is estimated at around $2M (an estimated $400 per square foot for building acquisition and buildout costs). Our goal is to raise $500K to put towards a down payment on a building, reserving a small portion to begin implementing a training program by summer of 2024 so that when we transition to our new facility, we can more seamlessly migrate over to fire up production as quickly as possible. Our goal is to secure a building by the summer of 2024 which we can occupy and begin operating out of by the summer of 2025.

Perhaps the most critical piece of our growth plan is to incorporate a training component to address a major issue threatening the survival of many small businesses - the worker shortage. In our industry I can attest to the fact that this is due to two main factors: 1) a rising demand for higher wages, and 2) a skills gap. The skills of a chocolatier operating at our level are rare, highly sought after and expensive to develop. This creates a barrier for many people whose social and economic circumstances make access to this world too cost prohibitive. Growing our company will allow us to have an even greater positive impact in our industry by leveraging our expertise and our intercontinental partnerships to close some of the gaps between the agricultural, manufacturing and consumption sides of the chocolate industry.

Why gofundme: CocoVaa is a fearless chocolate company that has defied the odds time and time again. Unconventional companies require unconventional financial strategies. As an independently owned black woman founded business, statistically, we’re not only NOT likely to be in this industry on the manufacturing side, but we’re not even supposed to still be here. However, it’s been 7 years and we’re still here! We work hard and win. With your help we know we can position our company for longevity.

Over the years our customers and supporters have been the bedrock of our success. You’ve been there with us through our toughest challenges and biggest battles. We hope you’ll continue to help us evolve to have a more meaningful impact and play a transformative role in the chocolate industry.

If you’re interested in supporting, but prefer to donate through the mail, checks can be made out and mailed to:

CocoVaa Chocolatier

1815 East Washington Ave

Madison, WI 53704

If you are unable to contribute financially, we would be very grateful if you could share this GoFundMe within your networks.

Another way to support us is to go to our website at www.cocovaa.com and purchase our products!

On behalf of my entire family, I thank you for your continued support.

With Infinite Gratitude,

Syovata Edari

Founder/Owner