Light lager brand Montucky Cold Snacks is “a big anchor” within Gallo’s total beverage alcohol strategy moving forward, as the wine and spirits giant enters the beer category, Gallo EVP and general manager Britt West told Brewbound.
The deal environment within the craft brewing industry is “a bit slow” with “a lot of volatility, a lot of uncertainty,” which isn’t very conducive to dealmaking, Arlington Capital Advisors managing director Ryan Lake shared during the 2023 Brewbound Live business conference earlier this month.
Canadian non-alcoholic beer maker Partake Brewing has raised $4 million in the company’s first institutional funding round, which was led by San Francisco-based CircleUp Growth Partners.
Kalamazoo, Michigan-headquartered Bell’s Brewery will enter its 42nd state later this year, with the addition of distribution to Oklahoma. Bell’s, the seventh largest Brewers-Association-defined craft brewery, will be partnering with Republic National Distribution Company of Oklahoma.
Chris Hollod wants to be known as one of the most active angel investors in the alcohol space. After about a decade of making investments with billionaire Ron Burkle and actor Ashton Kutcher, Hollod, a Los Angeles-based venture capitalist, struck out on his own in 2019 and has shifted his focus from investing in tech companies such as Airbnb, Uber, Spotify and Warby Parker, to investing in consumer packaged good companies, specifically “alternative alcohol” companies.”
The private investment group announced as a majority investor in Weyerbacher Brewing Company this past April has backed out of the deal, the brewery’s chief operating officer, Josh Lampe, told Brewbound. Instead, the Easton, Pennsylvania-based craft brewery has turned to a group of seven individuals and two trusts to invest $50,000 in exchange for shares in the business, according to a reorganization plan filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pennsylvania’s Eastern District.
Cerveceria Calidad, a recently launched Mexican-style lager brand, has secured $2.5 million in seed funding from more than 20 investors, including American-Mexican Major League Baseball player Adrian González. Other notable investors include Nathaniel Ru, Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman, the founders of Sweetgreen, and MeUndies founder and CEO Jonathan Shokrian.
Wilmington, North Carolina-based Ironclad Brewery has established a venture capital business unit in order to invest its profits into other startups. Speaking to Brewbound, CEO Ted Coughlin said Ironclad will make investments in the beer space as well as other sectors with significant growth potential. He added that Ironclad will invest its profits — which he estimates will average about $200,000 annually — in about eight startup companies a year.
