Digital wine marketplace The Wine Collective announces it is conducting a $7.5 million capital raising to sophisticated investors focused on delivering significant technological innovation to the Australian wine landscape.
“Our aspiration is to use the capital raised to accelerate our marketplace build whilst focusing on digital personalisation. This will enable us to push ahead towards 10,000 wines available (over 6800 products are listed to date) by the end of the year and back this with an intelligent engine that knows just which ones are for you,” said The Wine Collective CEO, Mr Lloyd Heinrich.
“The key to the success of The Wine Collective will be in focusing on collaboration and community building with both our supplier base and customer networks.”
Mr Heinrich is most excited about the opportunity to bring to bear the best technology the world has to offer on an industry that has been constrained by narrow supply channels. “Building the biggest marketplace for wine in the country enables us to bring all of the colour and light that exists within this very old and highly engaging category to life in the digital realm.”
Following the merger of Australia’s first wine club The Wine Society with Cracka Wines, My Wine Guy and Winegrowers Direct, an innovative new brand, The Wine Collective was launched in March 2019. Since then the business has been focused on improving customer service and rapidly growing the business.
The Wine Society, Australia’s first wine club, has been an integral part of the local wine landscape for more than 70 years, pioneering monthly wine plans and curating wine selections for members. Mr. Heinrich has been focused on a digital transformation of the group, enhancing the DNA of personalised wine service and offering a vastly improved range of wines through a new digital marketplace concept.
“We have had great traction with our customer base as we provide an even better level of service and an ever expanding range of wines. We are focused on the small to medium sized producer and providing the choice that we know consumers demand.
“We know that globally, online channels are outgrowing all other retail and there will be a time in the not too distant future where going to a physical bottleshop to purchase wine will be a thing of the past. Our model gives us the ability to provide a huge range, as well as a personalised service using digital means.”
The Wine Collective has built an enviable position in the market with a database of 400,000 plus wine lovers, relationships with over 700 wine producers and an incredible array of the world’s most interesting wines.
The Wine Collective intends to raise $7.5 million in order to fund the twin strategies of building a world class marketplace and personalising the experience for users to enable pain free purchasing.
Details:
The funding round is open through to 14 April 2020.
Interested parties should contact either Lloyd Heinrich or Mark Fogarty (details below).
For further details, please contact:
- Lloyd Heinrich, CEO, The Wine Collective on 0430 347 733 or [email protected]
- Mark Fogarty, Company Secretary, The Wine Collective on 0412 141 742 or [email protected]
- David Cumming, Define Wine Marketing & Communications on 0414 736 342 or [email protected]
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