Thirstie, a B2B company that provides white labeled alcoholic drink ecommerce software, announced today that it has raised a $7 million Series A, led by Queens Court Capital. This brings the total amount of funding raised by the company to $12 million.
Thirstie’s platform acts as a kind of middleman for liquor retailers and brands. For retailers, Thirstie provides a turnkey storefront to facilitate the purchase of alcohol online, notifying retailers of orders placed, handling payments, etc. For liquor companies, which are not allowed to sell booze directly to consumers, Thirstie can set up a marketplace on that brand’s site which connects the order with a network of retailers in areas where it is legal to ship alcohol. That way brands can “sell” their goods without actually selling them.
In addition to facilitating sales, Thirstie can also provide data to both retailers and liquor brands. This data helps understand what products people are buying, and when and where purchases happen, and could also be useful in the development of new products by understanding what flavors are popular, or connecting the combination of drinks people are buying.
In addition to its funding news, Thirstie also announced today that DrinkWorks, the joint venture between Keurig Dr. Pepper and Anheuser-Busch, will be using Thirstie’s software. DrinkWorks makes the DrinkWorks Home Bar, a countertop cocktail machine that uses Kuerig-like flavor pods to whip up drinks like Moscow mules and margaritas. Using Thirstie will allow DrinkWorks to make those sales from its own site and collect all that data.
Thirstie is part of the online booze delivery biz boom. Earlier this month, Instacart expanded its hooch delivery to 14 states, and alcohol delivery service, Drizly raised $34.5 million for its online marketplace.
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