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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Vivino

Vivino Raises $155M Series D for its Wine App and Online Marketplace

Mobile wine app and online marketplace, Vivino announced today that it has raised a $155 million Series D round of funding. This round was led by investment firm Kinnevik and Sprints Capital, with participation from GP BullHound and Creandum. This brings the company’s total funding to $221 million USD.

This most recent round of funding will be used for Vivino’s continued geographical expansion and to incorporate more personalized AI (artificial intelligence) into its platform. The company will focus its expansion efforts in markets in the US, UK, Germany, Portugal, and Japan. Its AI will be improved to create better wine recommendations for its customers.

Vivino’s community can use the mobile app or online marketplace to see reviews and ratings of different wines, and view personal recommendations based on their preferences. Customers shop for wine online through the website marketplace or app, and have wine shipped directly to their homes. Vivino allows the customer to shop for wine based on grape or region, and offers wine pairing recommendations for a variety of foods. Once the wine delivery arrives, customers can use the accompanying app to scan each bottle and receive additional information about the wine. For those unsure which bottle of wine to pick out, Vivino uses its AI-based recommendation platform to make suggestions.

E-commerce alcohol sales have significantly increased since the start of the pandemic, and this sector seems to be having its moment. Vivino’s fundraise comes just one day after alcohol delivery service and online marketplace Drizly was purchased by Uber for $1.1 billion.

Currently, 50 million people worldwide are part of the Vivino community of wine drinkers. The Vivino app is free, and available for both Apple and Android phones.

Market Map: Booze Tech in 2019

From countertop devices used in the home kitchen to delivery services, the number of avenues in which companies can get booze to customers has expanded in recent years. And since it’s still the time of year when drinking on patios is a popular sport, we decided to focus our latest market map on all the tech out there currently changing the alcohol space.

In the U.S., alcohol consumption has actually stagnated, according to IWSR, but part of this is due to consumers now seeking quality over quantity when it comes to their drinking. Which might explain the rise in the number of companies offering recommendations apps that rate beers, wines, and spirits as well as at-home devices for the kitchen countertop that give the user a little more control over the quality of their drinks.

For The Spoon’s Booze Tech in 2019 market map, we divvied the market up into several categories where technology is making the biggest impact on the way people get, create, and consume beer, wine, and spirits. That’s everything from apps that update you on the best craft beers available to at-home bartending devices that let you release your inner mixologist to the many ways in which companies are making it possible to get the booze delivered right to your doorstep. We’ve narrowed the companies down to a collection of startups and major corporations alike. As with any post that outlines a market, this list isn’t exhaustive. So if you have thoughts and tips for who else you’d like to see here, feel free to drop us a line.

While we’re on the subject of maps, be sure to check out our 2019 Food Robotics market map and our Food Waste Innovation in 2019 map.

Booze Tech in 2019

Wine-Searcher Builds Casey The Chatbot To Reach ‘Everyday Wine Drinker’

Since the time Wine-Searcher was founded by London wine merchant Martin Brown in the late nineties, the site has become one of the Internet’s go-to destinations to discover new wine. Over the past 18 years, the wine search engine has made a name for itself by pairing an extensive database of wines with the opinions of renowned wine experts like Jancis Robinson to help thirsty users find their next great bottle.

But if you just need to pick up a bottle for dinner tonight at the local wine shop or grocery store, you may not have time to sift through the millions of listings (about 9 million at last count) on the Wine-Searcher website or on their mobile app to find one. But that’s probably ok with Wine-Searcher, since nowadays they might just suggest you ask Casey.

Meet Casey The Chatbot

Casey is Wine-Searcher’s new wine chatbot. The bot, currently available in beta on the Wine-Searcher website or through Facebook Messenger, is a big strategic initiative for the company who sees Casey as a way to expand their addressable market.

“For us, (Casey) is moving us into the everyday wine drinker market beyond the wine expert,” said company spokesperson Suzanne Kendrick in a phone interview with The Spoon.

Kendrick explained the typical Wine-Searcher user ranges from wine enthusiasts who know enough to discern they “like New Zealand Pinot” all the way up to wine experts. However, the company feels there is a large swath of wine drinkers who just want a good bottle of wine and don’t have time to learn the difference between New Zealand and California Pinot.

Those drinkers just “want a recommendation, want a great wine at a great price, and they want to get it now and not wait for it to ship next week,” said Kendrick.

It’s for this consumer – the ‘everyday wine drinker’ – that Wine-Searcher built Casey.

Minimal Viable Product

The company has been working on Casey for about a year and has eight people working on the project according to Kendrick. To help them build the bot, the team has been working closely with Microsoft. That’s because the framework powering the bot’s ability to carry on a natural language conversation is Microsoft’s LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) platform.

According to Kendrick, the Casey is getting better and better and having conversations about wine, but she says the chatbot is still in the “minimal viable product” phase of development. While Casey is good at wine recommendations, it’s still learning to how to make food recommendations.

Casey, Wine-Searcher’s chatbot

I gave Casey a whirl, and it worked better on the Wine-Searcher website than in Messenger, where the bot told me the server was unavailable after I asked it for a $75 bottle recommendation to go with a hypothetical meal of fried chicken. On the company site, Casey asked me my wine preference (red, white, etc.) and price range and was able to recommend a bottle. When I chose a bottle of wine, it handed me off to Total Wine & More’s website for me to choose in-store or delivery.

This last part is important because Wine-Searcher makes much of its revenue through its relationships with large wine retailers like Total Wine & More. Other wine destination sites like the fast-growing Vivino, which just nabbed $25 million in funding, are taking more of a one-stop shop approach for wine buying by serving up recommendations and handing the commerce and delivery as well (it also looks like Vivino is working on its own effort to take its wine scanner capability from the app and put it into bot form).

For its part, Wine-Searcher is happy to stay out of fulfillment and shipping and just be the Internet’s wine experts helping the widest possible audience. With its chatbot, which the company is just starting to talk about, they hope to expand their audience and help take the company into its next two decades.