Bevvy, the whisky app, has announced the successful closure of a $1.5 million seed funding round, with the aim of supporting its expansion into new market regions.
The new investment primarily comes from angel investors based in Scotland, existing shareholders, and a family office in Denver, USA. The company is actively expanding its footprint in the United States, diversifying its collection of Bourbon bottles. A portion of the US investment is contingent upon the commitment to establishing a live and active presence in the US market by mid-2024.
Laurie Black, co-founder & head of whisky at Bevvy, commented, “Having already established the leading position in the digital whisky space; this new capital allows us to cement our market share and grow our consumer audience into new territories. We’re hugely excited to be heading Stateside in 2024.”
Bevvy’s Innovative App: Whisky Scanning and Insights
App users can leverage both the application and the camera on their mobile phones to scan the label of any whisky bottle, obtaining tasting notes and valuations. Central to this functionality is a robust database encompassing 200,000 whiskies released over the past 120 years. Upon scanning a bottle, the whisky’s “profile” is enriched with content from distilleries and bottlers, along with pricing data and expert tasting notes.
Greg Gormley, finance director for Bevvy, added, “In one of the most challenging fundraising environments I can recall, Bevvy’s successful raise underlines its dominant and growing position as a critical tool among whisky consumers and collectors. The interest and demand in whisky are growing at a pace not seen before. However, the market is fragmented and disjointed, with an absence of easy-to-access tools and information.”
He continued, “There is a considerable hole in the market for a value-add, information-led app that allows a bottle of whisky to be fully understood, in terms of taste, history and pricing. Bevvy is addressing this need and is finding its audience is both engaged and growing at a phenomenal pace.”
Bevvy has collaborated with bars and auctioneers, enabling bars to create a live menu and allowing auctioneers to provide potential sellers with estimated values for their whisky collections if they decide to auction their bottles.
Co-founder Black added, “This is an extraordinarily exciting time for us; we see thousands of bottle scans each and every week and we are gaining a fascinating insight into user taste preferences, price trends and industry strengths and weaknesses. Bevvy finds itself at the heart of a major shift in how consumers and collectors engage with this multi-billion-dollar market. 2024 is going to be a year of spectacular development and innovation.”
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