Pilot Project, a Chicago-based brewery incubator, has closed a $8 million seed round, led by the Chicago investment group InvestBev.
With the seed money, Pilot Project has acquired the facility assets and taken over the long-term lease (about 36 years) of the former Milwaukee Brewing Company (MKE) production facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company will also take over the facility’s attached Bottle House 42 restaurant. However, Pilot Project did not acquire MKE’s intellectual property.
MKE listed its facility for sale as a turnkey operation in March. The 70,000 sq. ft. location – which includes indoor and outdoor space – boasts an annual capacity of 75,000 barrels, according to the listing. The brewery is located next to Fiserv Forum, the home of Marquette University and the NBA’s Milwakuee Bucks.
Pilot Project plans to “refresh” the building, including its beer garden, rooftop, restaurant and tasting room, converting the space into a “playground” for the company’s incubated brands, according to a press release. The company “will be extending [job] offers to many of Milwaukee Brewing’s team,” as well as hiring for several positions in the coming weeks, Pilot Project co-founder Dan Abel told Brewbound. The facility is expected to be open and operational by the end of the year.
“Pilot Project was established to support creativity, diversity and innovation in an industry that often overlooks it or maintains unreasonable barriers to allow it,” Abel said in the release. “By bringing Pilot back to Wisconsin, where [co-founder Jordan Radke] and I went to school, we are introducing a business focused on catalyzing innovation to the birthplace of disruption in brewing. The Milwaukee Brewing facility is a former Pabst building, and we are eager to participate and continue the legacy of innovation rooted in this city and support creativity in brewing nationwide.”
Pilot Project’s seed round marks a significant increase compared to the company’s initial funding efforts in 2019, when the company raised $500,000 from friends and family. Since its founding, the company has launched more than 13 brands, including Luna Bay Hard Kombucha, Azadi Brewing and Funkytown Brewery (winner of Brewbound’s 2021 Pitch Slam competition).
Pilot Project focuses on supporting breweries crafted by and for communities underrepresented in the beverage-alcohol industry. The company offers breweries in its program a range of resources, including recipe creation, production, marketing, brand building and distribution. The launch of a brand generally takes three months, but the new facility will help the company scale production faster, Abel told Brewbound. Brands stay on with the company for as short as three to six months, to as long as 24 months, depending on “the needs of the brand.”
The latest seed round will also help the company launch an additional five to 10 brands annually, according to the release. Over the next five years, Pilot Project plans to launch incubators and taprooms in several other “key national and international cities,” including Los Angeles, Miami and London.
Pilot Project had planned to expand its operations in Chicago this year, but the Milwaukee facility negates the need, Abel said. Its existing facility in the city’s Logan Neighborhood was originally meant to support production of the company’s partner breweries for at least 12-18 months, but reached capacity within three months. As a result, Pilot Project has relied on third-party production facilities to contract brew. The Milwaukee addition means there is “no longer a production ceiling” for the brands it incubates, Abel said.