Drizly, the online booze shopping and delivery service, announced yesterday that it has raised a $50 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by Avenir with participation from Tiger Global and other existing investors. This brings the total amount raised by Drizly to $119.6 million.
The funding comes during what appears to be a bit of a boom time for Drizly. According to the company’s announcement, Drizly “has grown over 350% in 2020 as compared to 2019 while achieving sustained profitability.”
It’s not hard to believe those numbers for one big, awful reason: the pandemic. COVID-19 shut down bars and restaurants around the country, and even when some re-opened, they can be hotspots for virus transmission. The pandemic, of course, has kept more people at home and drove them into the arms of e-commerce for things like food and drinks and, evidently booze.
And of course, with the world as it is these days and anxieties running high, who could blame vast swaths of the population for taking the edge off with a little pinot greeezh.
It seems like all these factors are contributing to Drizly’s aggressive prediction that 20 percent of off-premise alcohol purchases will be online within the next five years, up from less than two percent in 2020. Actually, given everything going on in the world, 20 percent does not seem that outlandish.
Drizly is definitely scaling up to help facilitate those online sales. The company said it’s now up and running in 235 markets across North America via a network of 3,300 retail partners.
Of course, there are plenty of startups ready to take their shots at the online alcohol biz. There are wine services like Winc and Drinks.com, GrapeStars lets celebrities hawk their booze, and grocery delivery services like Instacart let you add booze to your weekly order.
With this pandemic showing now signs of slowing down, chances are good that Drizly’s drink delivery won’t be doing so either anytime soon.
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