Ferovinum, the funding and supply chain platform for wine and spirits businesses, today announces the completion of its £17.5m Series A funding round. The round was led by Notion Capital, a leading European SaaS and Cloud investment firm, whose General Partner Jos White will join the Ferovinum board. The oversubscribed round also has participation from Shapers VC, Semapa Next and Ferovinum’s existing shareholder group.Businesses in the drinks industry are faced with a very specific set of challenges, including major liquidity constraints (with funds tied up in stock and payment terms), a complex and outdated supply chain, and a highly-regulated global market that creates friction and barriers to selling internationally.
Ferovinum has created an end-to-end digital platform that helps businesses fund, produce, procure, and sell to global wine and spirits markets.The company has already seen tremendous growth in the UK market, with over £170 million of product transacted through the platform and growing annual sales by 1,000% since early 2023. To date, Ferovinum’s platform has deployed over £114m of funding in support of UK wine and spirits producers, enabling a huge flow from capital markets into the wine and spirits industries.
This new funding will enable the company to enter new markets and broaden its product set across funding and the supply chain. The service will also be launching in the US and Europe later this year.Ferovinum is currently working with a range of high-growth customers in the UK drinks industry including two of Edinburgh's most exciting new independent distilleries; Holyrood Distillery & Port of Leith Distillery, English sparkling wine pioneers like Ridgeview Wine Estate & Hundred Hills Winery (in 2024 Ferovinum has become the largest provider of working capital to the English sparkling wine industry), alongside innovative category disruptors like canned cocktail company Moth Drinks.
Jos White, General Partner at Notion Capital says, “Ferovinum’s platform leverages technology to give small and mid-sized players in the drinks industry access to funding, and an integrated set of supply chain services. In this way they enable their customers to compete more effectively with the large corporates and, ultimately, to unlock growth. We couldn’t be more excited to invest in this industry disruptor.”
Mitchel Fowler, Ferovinum Co-founder & CEO, says: “The wine and spirits industry is worth $800 billion annually, and yet we’re running it in an archaic and inefficient way. At Ferovinum, we’re passionate about building technology for the sector in a way that provides the rails for the most exciting next-generation of brands and resellers to succeed. This funding will allow us to do so on a larger scale. We’re so excited to have Notion Capital supporting us – they have a tremendous track record and team when it comes to B2B Software as a Service. Jos White will be an invaluable board member – he’s the Yoda of SaaS!”
Read about the announcement in Tech Crunch here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/19/this-founder-grew-up-in-wine-country-nows-hes-built-a-platform-for-wine-makers/
Read Notion's Investment thesis here: https://www.notion.vc/resources/why-we-invested-in-ferovinum
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For Media enquiries
Ben Goldsmith
ben@goldsmithcomms.com
+44(0)7788295321
About Ferovinum
Ferovinum is a London-based growth platform that provides access to capital and supply chain optimisation for the c.$800bn global wine and spirits sector. The platform not only provides funding to the sector, but also utilises its supply chain integration and proprietary trading software to provide bespoke tools that increase operational efficiency (through production, supply chain & ecommerce management tools), optimise ancillary services (such as insurance, freight, foreign exchange & payments) and connects brands with distributors for more efficient trading and direct market access.
Ferovinum’s unique model is different to traditional lending, and relieves the working capital and operational burden by owning and carrying inventories for clients throughout the supply chain.This provides working capital and supply chain automation up to the point that products are sold into a brand’s sales channels. This model leverages trading concepts used widely in commodity markets to provide an enhanced risk profile, greater flexibility, increased data collection to support underwriting decisions and low operating costs at scale.Founded by Mitchel Fowler (CEO) and Daniel Gibney (CFO), Ferovinum has been operating since 2018 and has funded over 35 million bottles for wine and spirits businesses to date.Find out more about Ferovinum: https://www.ferovinum.com/
About Notion Capital
Notion Capital is a European B2B SaaS and Cloud VC with more than $1bn assets under management and with more than 100 investments to date. The Notion team founded, built and exited two highly successful SaaS businesses - Star and MessageLabs - and invests exclusively in exceptional founders with the ambition to build global category leaders. The Notion portfolio includes GoCardless, Mews, Paddle, Unbabel and YuLife. Notion is also the founder of Included VC, the venture capital fellowship for individuals from diverse and overlooked communities from around the world.Find out more about Notion: https://www.notion.vc/
