Top 10 crowdfunded drinks projects

With crowdfunding becoming an increasingly powerful way for drinks companies to raise funds, we take a look at some of the best examples of crowdfunded drinks projects.

We’re in a business era where big companies like to look small and friendly, and small companies have the power to reach many more people through social media and a smart web presence. Crowdfunding taps into a culture where businesses can use that extended reach, and the ability to communicate their business story, and turn it into real cash.

Whether it’s to realise a dream or extend an existing business, there’s a range of drinks businesses that have followed this route.

Chapel Down/Curious Brew

Chapel Down Curious Brew

Funding Sought: £1,000,000

Achieved: £1,749,100

Project: Chapel Down Wines were looking for £1 million to expand their Curious Drinks beer and cider business, and turned to crowdfunding through the Seedrs platform. To achieve a successful crowdfunding campaign, you have to engage your potential investors with a compelling story. Curious Drinks built a campaign that presented its passionate approach to innovation and asked investors to get on board to help them build a brewery in Ashford. It seemed to work. This was the second crowdfunding campaign in the space of a year for Chapel Down. In a first round, they raised 2.9 million pounds for their core winemaking business.

Popelouchum Vineyard – Randall Grahm

Funding Sought: $160,000

Achieved: $173,405

Project: This is a project with grand aims, well beyond the normal confines of a simply-defined product or service. Founded by veteran Californian winemaker Randall Grahm, he explains: “I’m looking to change the wine industry in a big way. It is part of my life’s work to continue to push the boundaries of this very conservative business. I want to create 10,000 new grape varieties over the next 10 years, and to plant a uniquely heterodox vineyard – each vine genetically distinctive from the other – in the hopes of revealing a new Grand Cru in the New World.”

This is his pitch on Indiegogo. Funders responded to the ambitious reach of the project, and were enticed by the rewards for investment – rewards such as having a new grape variety named after you for just $100.00 – for the winelover who has everything, this must be an unmissable gift that you just can’t buy in the shops. A great example of how to choose the rewards for crowdfunded campaigns.

Red Squirrel Brewing

Funding Sought: £500,000

Achieved: £651,100

Project: Red Squirrel Brewery turned to Crowdcube to help fund their business. The money’s being used to develop brewery operations, and help with the opening of another seven craft beer shops in London and the southeast over the next three years, adding to its four current premises.

Red Squirrel also plans to triple the output of its range of craft beers, which includes American Pale Ale, Milk Stout and Black Lager. Many crowdfunding campaigns aim to raise money by offering investors ‘perks’ and rewards, but this was a more traditional equity-based fundraising exercise, with investors gaining shares in the business. Over 600 investors signed up, and the largest single investment received was for £50,000.

Wink Lorch – Jura Wine guide

Funding Sought: £7,500

Achieved: £14,076

Project: Wine publishing is a tricky business these days, and traditional publishing houses are ever less likely to fund and commission a solid guide to one of the world’s great, but niche, wine regions. Wine writer Wink Lorch chose to follow the crowdfunding route to realise her plans for a guide to Jura Wine via Kickstarter. 376 people backed the project, and it became a critically acclaimed and much talked-about publication.

As Wink revealed on her own website, the crowdfunding process was challenging but the results were rewarding: “Some of the people who pledged are friends or colleagues personally known to me, many I know only slightly or ‘virtually’ through social media; many others are complete strangers – I don’t even recognise their names. They come from all over the world.”

Camden Town Brewery

Funding Sought: £1,500,000

Achieved: £2,750,860

Project: Camden Town Brewery were one of the big poster boys for the craft beer boom and had a big following from the fashionable north London crowd, alongside beer fans who just really liked their stuff. So they turned to Crowdcube for some crowdfunding love. In the run-up to their campaign, annual revenues had risen tenfold from £900,000 to around £9 million in just three years. The funding was being raised so they could build a brand new custom built brewery to help them keep up with demand and “bring the taste of Camden Lager to the world”.

Despite raising £2.5 million, in the end the world came to them instead, and they sold the company to AB Inbev. It’s unlikely the company profile would allow them to enter the crowdfunding arena again, not least as the loyal following they had has been dented among many of the craft aficionados, for “selling out” to big brewing interests.

Shaken Cocktails

Funding Sought: £100,001

Achieved: £200,734

Project: Shaken Cocktails are a cocktail subscription service that delivers ingredients directly to customers’ doors.

Their aim in raising funds via Seedrs, was to add products to the range, developing entry-level products for direct-to-consumer sale, as well as selling cocktail equipment, bundled packs and spirits online to increase the basket size for current members.

In addition, they planned to enter duty free retail; and launch a product aimed at the hotel market.

Mark Jennings, founder of Shaken, says it’s actually fairly hard work managing a crowdfunding campaign. He says: “You need to stay on the front page. The tedious thing is structuring a campaign so that you are always visible.”

He adds: “There are two ways to treat investors, and that’s either ignore them or take them with you, and we take everyone with us. It seems like it’s going to be really easy, but it’s actually really tough.”

Cotswolds Distillery

Funding Sought: £500,500

Achieved: £1,001,000

Project: The Cotswolds Distillery was looking for half a million pounds to double whisky production, expand its visitor centre and open a retail space in a nearby town, and went to Crowdbnk.

Distillery Founder Daniel Szor says the main benefit of crowdfunding is about spreading the message: “It allows us to widen our circle of investors and increase our brand advocates who will pass on our message. Crowdfunding is a marketing strategy in and of itself. We could have raised as much with local investors, but we wouldn’t have had 90 new ones”.

In the end, they doubled their expected funding, reaching over one millio pounds.

WINKpen

Funding Sought: $47,000

Achieved: $62,062

Project: One of the more unusual campaigns from Kickstarter to have a drinks connection, this is a stylish pen, rather like a fountain pen, that can be used with wine instead of ink. The name WINK comes from a contraction of the phrase ‘wine as ink’, and backers seemed to like it.

The inventor Jess Chan, an Oregon-based designer, said: “In essence, the WINKpen was born from the desire to create a sustainable alternative to something that many of us use in our daily lives.”

The pen, which retails at $60 (£39), features a reversible glass nib that can be used for fine writing or calligraphy.

Critter Bitters

Funding Sought: $21,000

Achieved: $25,477

Project: One of those products that might have been harder to fund through traditional means, this was another Kickstarter success for the founders of this unusual drinks component.

Critter Bitters are made from toasted crickets, adding a “sweet, nutty note to drinks”. The aim is to create a ‘gateway’ for eating insects, as the company identified that consumers are more willing to try new things as part of a cocktail.

So there’s a campaigning element to the company philosophy, which fits the whole crowdfunding approach quite well.

Kuvee: Smart wine bottle

Funding Sought: $50,000

Achieved: $110,795

Project: Sophisticated gadgetry around wine is becoming more common, and public engagement is key to their success. Kuvée is a fresh idea, for keeping wine fresh for up to 30 days, so it’s a winning idea for crowdfunding.

Promoted via Indiegogo, the campaign concentrated on its ‘first to market’ status and the pending patents on its design. The rewards were fairly engaging too – with tie-ins with some of California’s best-known wineries, the chance to get some actual bottles of real wine as a reward gives the investment some tangible value.

Kuvée’s smart technology makes sure the wine is served at the right temperature, learns what you like and recommends more wines for you to try. There’s a smartphone-style screen that gives you information about the wine you’re drinking, and when you need more wine, you can order right from the Bottle through the integrated touchscreen display. You’ll need to wait for the wine to arrive through the post, however. It’s not that smart … yet.

And, it’s a gadget. Everyone loves a gadget, especially when it comes with wine.