Sydney-based beverage startup eBev has announced a raise of $1.5 million as it prepares a national roll out of its technology platform.
The eBev platform is a search and ordering tool that allows licensed venues such as restaurants, hotels, bars and independent retailers to order all their beverage supplies in one place.
The largest platform of its kind in Australia, eBev has a database of more than 23,000 wines and provides a centralised and mobile platform for Australia’s 38,000 licensed venues to source, purchase and manage their stock.
Since its inception, over 700 venues in Sydney have registered with more than 17,000 cases ordered, with $2.5 million worth of transactions.
Proceeds from the capital raising will allow eBev to expand the product offering and scale nationally.
The funds raised will also allow eBev to build out its service offering to include all beverage types, and tools to help sales reps and payments.
The fully mobile platform assists venues by cutting their sourcing, inventory management and ordering time, as well as providing analytics on how products are performing in real time.
Cassandra MacDonald, general manager of eBev said the company has a very loyal member base, including venues such as Garfish Group, The Bathers Pavilion, The Tilbury Hotel and Rag & Famish Hotel.
“We are now in a position to grow that community and extend our offering across Australia and are launching in Melbourne next week", she said.
The company's target is to have a national reach across all beverages by the end of FY17.
"We are fiercely independent and respect the key role of industry participants including distributors and sales reps. Our technology offers efficiencies to make it easier for licensed venues to find beverages and their suppliers, to contact them, to order from them and pay them, in what is a highly fragmented market place,” said MacDonald.
This story was originally published on The Shout.
L–R: Richard Barlow, Nathaniel Kammer, Cassandra MacDonald, David Saliba, Jason Deacon and Oscar Videan.