Legend Espresso News
Number Two Twentyfive.
In the past few months, a lot has happened. Before the year wraps up, we want to take a moment to bring you along and give you an update on where things stand.
Quick overview so you know what’s up: our team has grown, we’ve moved into our very first own space, the financing round II we mentioned in the last update is off to a great start, and the next prototype generation, the ‘Legend V.01,’ is now almost fully realized in CAD. Some parts are even already made or currently in production.
Let’s dive in…
Legend Team
We’ve got some fresh reinforcements!
Honestly, it was pretty much needed. As some of you know, Legend Espresso is primarily a passion project. Right now, everyone on the team is still funding themselves through other work to stay as lean as possible and keep external capital needs deliberately low.
What that means: our team is made up entirely of people who are hyped about this project, believe in its success, and are ready to invest their time and expertise. That way, we can build a top-notch setup across all relevant disciplines — from design and marketing to engineering.
Right now, most of our resources are flowing into engineering: CAD design, thermodynamics, as well as software and hardware development.
All the more reason we’re thrilled to have Jannes and Frederik on board now!
Frederik is actually a design engineer at Bosch, lives with his family in Stuttgart, and when Martin asked him if he could imagine joining the Legend team, it honestly felt like he’d been waiting for that moment 😁.
In the project, he’s taking care of the CAD design for the display housing and the electronics behind it.
Since the Legend display has exactly the same form factor as the machine’s analog pressure gauge, Freddy and Reto managed to integrate the entire unit, including all controls, into an almost identical housing. Not only does it look super sleek, but it also lowers our production costs and makes things more sustainable in the long run — yeah!
Jannes is a trained CAM programmer — basically someone who turns CAD data into precise, real-world parts on a CNC machine 😉.
On top of that, he’s currently completing his technician studies.
He reached out to us pretty unexpectedly after hearing about Legend Espresso. As a passionate espresso nerd, he was immediately on board — and at the same time looking for a project for his technician thesis.
Over the past few years, Jannes has dived deep into the topic of tool-free assembly of components. And that fits perfectly with our vision: even in the Legend, all modules should be easily accessible without tools, simple to maintain, and integrated into a housing made from renewable materials.
To really start picking up speed, we decided together to bring Eli (Schiele) on board part-time — his main focus being the structural engineering of the machine and the housing — and it’s already making a huge difference. At this point, Legend Espresso has been his main project for about eight months, and the Legend V.01 is now almost fully modeled in CAD.
Legend V.01
In the last update, we shared our plan for the machine. (If you missed it: you can also check it out on the website starting January.) The plan originally aimed for the first machines to be assembled and tested by the end of the year.
Now, it’s the end of the year — and the machines aren’t ready yet. Why?
As we mentioned, development has been moving along really well. Most of the parts we source from suppliers are already on hand for three units. Some of the first, specially manufactured components are in as well.
What’s changed is our plan. Originally, we wanted to build the upcoming prototypes so that, design-wise, they would finally be real Legends — no more “Frankenstein” units.
In some areas, however, we planned to use temporary solutions and leave certain details — which are important for the production series — for the next generation.
When we realized how time- and cost-intensive it would be to fully manufacture new prototype assemblies, we decided to change course:
Instead of building fully new machines right away, we’ve upgraded the entire innards of our “Frankenstein Two” to Legend V.01 level — valves, sensors, hardware, software, etc. — and are driving the development of the Legend V.01 straight toward pre-series readiness.
This way, we can run all the tests on Frankenstein Two at Legend level and directly transfer the insights to the Legend V.01.
It saves us a huge amount of money — and gives us the time to refine the details of the Legend V.01 as far as possible to production standards.
Bottom line: the three planned Legends will be assembled a bit later than originally expected — but once they’re built, we’ll be much closer to the production series than we ever would have been under the old plan.
Here are a few impressions of the first assemblies and components of the Legend V.01:
😎
Legend Custom Driptray made from solid brushed stainless steel
(version with polished mirror finish for use with a bottomless portafilter)
Legend V.01 basic chassis with drip tray in brushed stainless steel
first sample production run of the Legend pressure gauge
first sample production run of the custom Legend steam wand
Legend Headquarter
Another milestone for us—and at the same time the start of a new chapter for Legend Espresso: we’ve officially moved!
Those of you who’ve been following us for a while know that it all started in the legendary co-working space ‘FRANZ!werk’ in the so-called French Quarter of Tübingen/Germany. That’s where we developed our first ideas, built the first two prototypes, enjoyed the first espressos from our self-developed machine—and where our ‘workshop’ stayed until the very end.
Over time, we basically occupied half of the Franzwerk workshop. And considering what we want to achieve with Legend, it had long been clear that we needed more space—room to tinker, build, test, and grow. Now, we’ve taken that big step: we’ve officially moved to our new location!
Starting January 1st, Legend Espresso has a new address. Here we can fully develop the machine, bring it to production-ready status, and even set up the first production and assembly workflows—all under one roof.
Back in October, when we moved in, it looked like this:
Since then, we’ve already rolled up our sleeves a bit, and now the workshop looks like this:
FUNDING ROUND II
Let’s circle back to a topic that’s obviously super important for us as a start-up: financing.
As we mentioned in the last newsletter, no matter how much passion, time, and work we put in ourselves, we also need capital to actually make this machine a reality.
We’ve always emphasized that by investing our own time, know-how, and resources, we’ve been able to reduce the need for outside funding to just a fraction of what’s normally required to develop a product like this.
That said, we still can’t do it completely without capital.
So, this past summer we launched Financing Round II with a total target of €250,000.
Some of you reached out right after the newsletter—and honestly, we were blown away: so far we’ve already received or secured over €130,000 in investments!! That’s more than half of our goal, and for us, it’s absolutely incredible. Huge, huge thanks to everyone who decided to support this project, be part of it, and help make the Legend a reality! You’re amazing!!
To hit our target by the end of 2026, we still need another €120,000—so we’re already past the halfway mark.
So here’s another shoutout: if you love this project as much as we do, see its potential, and want to be part of this journey, get in touch! We’ve put together several ways to invest in Legend Espresso—just follow the link below.
We’ve come so far—now let’s take it all the way together!
the Perspective
Alright, as usual: what’s going on right now, and what’s coming next?
Over the past few months, we’ve been advancing the CAD design together – closely aligned with product design and our suppliers. For the Legend V.01, we’re now in the final stretch. Right after the Christmas break, we’ll go into the design review – the last step before we can request the parts from the respective manufacturers. And then we can finally start assembling the first machines 🚀
David has been busy designing a new brew unit, which is already installed in Frankenstein Two. The initial tests look super promising, but they’ve also revealed a few weak points that we’ll definitely need to tweak for the series – David’s already on it!
Meanwhile, Reto has developed a completely new hardware system to control the machine and written the corresponding software. It’s currently running – together with the new sensors and actuators (which we’re sourcing from near-production suppliers) – in Frankenstein Zwei and being tested step by step. From the results so far, we’ve already gone through several revision loops, identified bugs, and optimized the system further.
On top of that, Reto has taken the Legend Companion – our software for testing and calibrating the machines – to the next level. Now we can connect to any machine in the workshop from any device, run tests, and read out the results directly. Reto is just next level 💪🏼
At the same time, Jannes is developing our so-called “Cork-Pack” – the central modules inside the machine that enable tool-free assembly of all components. We can then produce and test these directly on our in-house CNC as prototypes.
Our clear goal is to have the first Legend V.01s assembled in Q1 – and then we can finally show you some real progress!
Thank you so, so much for all your support! 🙏🏼 If you haven’t already, make sure to check out our Instagram channel. And if you’ve got feedback, we’d love to hear it!
Catch you soon!
Your Legend Espresso Crew