23 May 2015

Online booze


Tom Huddleston, Jr. has an article in Fortune about booze:
Drizly raised thirteen million dollars in its quest to sell you booze on your smartphone, and investors are getting pumped about selling booze on-demand.
Drizly Inc., one of the biggest players in the market for online alcohol ordering, lets customers order booze online, or via a smartphone app, with the promise that it will be delivered within the hour. Drizly told The Wall Street Journal that the investment comes with a valuation of about forty million dollars.
Founded two years ago, Drizly partners with wine, beer, and liquor retailers looking to expand their geographical reach while still managing to comply with local alcohol sales and delivery laws. The company currently serves fifteen markets— including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, D.C.— though Drizly plans to use the new influx of funds to bring that total to thirty markets, while doubling its staff to eighty people, by the end of 2016.
“‘We’re in an industry that hasn’t moved in eighty years, since the end of Prohibition,” Drizly co-founder and CEO Nick Rellas told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s a hundred-billion-dollar market and less than one percent is online, so that’s a compelling opportunity.”
Drizly isn’t the only company that wants people to order more booze with their phones. Startups such as BrewDrop, DrinkFly, and Minibar are some of the competitors looking to compete with Drizly in various markets, while other sites with broader offerings, like Delivery.com, offer online sales of alcohol along with other products.
The financing announcement brings Drizly’s overall fundraising total to just under eighteen million dollars, which includes a two million dollar seed investment the company landed last year from a group that included Atlas Ventures and Breakaway Ventures. The company’s latest funding round was led by venture capital firm Polaris Partners, and also included other venture and strategic investors.
Rico says this may be happening, but not in benighted Pennsylvania...

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