DRINKS, an online platform that powers direct-to-consumer wine sales for brands like Martha Stewart Wine Co. and Wine Insiders, today announced it has raised a $15 million Series B round of funding led by Beverly Pacific. This bring the total amount raised by DRINKS to $25 million
According to the press announcement, DRINKS will use the new funds to scale its “ship-to-home platform that enables online and brick-and-mortar retailers to market wine directly to consumers in up to 41 states.”
The DRINKS platform lets digital merchants as well as brick and mortar stores start selling their own wine portfolios directly to consumers. The company says it facilitates curating wines for its clients, state-level compliance, as well as delivery.
While the funding is a nice way for DRINKS to bolster its coffers, it also reinforces the trend of investors paying attention to logistics and fulfillment of food and beverage. The DRINKS raise comes less than a month after Boxed raised $110 million in part for its end-to-end bulk grocery fulfillment technology, which the company can license to other retailers in the U.S..
Of course, DRINKS faces plenty of competition when it comes to delivery of boozy libations to your front door. Saucey, Drizly and Minibar also connect online customers with retail stores to facilitate home delivery of alcohol. DRINKS’s more B2B white label approach, however, seems to set it apart. And unlike other wine sellers online, DRINKS focuses on straight purchases, not subscriptions.
Based in Los Angeles, DRINKS was founded in 2013 and the company says it delivered more than 10 million bottles of wine in 2017, has delivered to 1 million households since its founding and has 500,000 active households. With today’s news, the people at DRINKS were probably raising a few glasses to celebrate.
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