Blank Street closed a $105 million equity deal in August 2026 that values the coffee chain at roughly $650 million. The round was led by General Atlantic and split between $75 million in new capital and $30 million in secondary sales, where existing shareholders sold stock. Six years earlier, the company was one cart in Brooklyn.
One of the founders behind it is Issam Freiha, who spent the first 11 years of his life in Beirut.
The Cart in Williamsburg
Blank Street was set up in May 2020 and started serving that August, next to a diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The first unit was a battery powered mobile cart painted the pale green the brand still uses today. Freiha built the business with Vinay Menda, who grew up in the UAE, and Ignacio Llado. Freiha and Menda both studied in New York, at Columbia and NYU.
The idea came from a gap Freiha kept running into as a customer. Independent coffee shops in New York made better coffee than the big chains but were slower and more expensive. The chains were fast and cheap, and the coffee showed it. He wanted a shop that did both.
Small Stores, Fast Coffee
Instead of opening large cafes with seating, Blank Street builds tiny ones. Less floor space means lower rent, and lower rent lets the company price drinks under what a specialty cafe charges. The stores run on automatic espresso machines, so two or three people can clear a queue quickly.
The format borrows from Asian chains such as Hey Tea and Kopi Kenangan rather than from American coffee culture. It also landed on the right drink at the right time. Matcha is reported to account for around half the business, and the flavored matcha and espresso drinks are what fill the brand's Instagram feed and its customers' videos.
106 Stores and Two Home Markets
Blank Street now runs 106 locations. New York and London carry the business, with stores also in Boston, Washington D.C., Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The first shop outside the United States opened in Fitzrovia, London, in March 2022.
Its price tag has moved fast. The company was valued at about $500 million in July 2025. In April 2026 it was reported to be in talks for a round that would have pushed it past $1 billion. The deal that closed four months later came in at $650 million, which is a strong result but short of unicorn status.
The California Push
The first Los Angeles store opened in Studio City on August 12, 2026, and the company reported queues down the block on a day that hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Malibu are lined up next. Blank Street is also stretching the menu past drinks, adding ice cream and snacks to pull in customers outside the morning rush.
The Route Out of Beirut
Freiha left Beirut for London in 2006 after the war. He spent two and a half years of high school in Dubai, switching to an American school there to prepare for university in the United States, then graduated from Columbia College in 2017 with a degree in economics and statistics.
He is also a partner at Reshape, a venture fund that backs consumer companies with a technology angle, Blank Street among them.
