Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Amplify Adds Wine Recommendations Site Club W To Accelerator
Venice-based startup accelerator Amplify LA has added a new startup to its portfolio, personalized wine recommendation site Club W. The two companies said that they are in a strategic partnership, which will provide Club W with the resources to keep up with stronger-than-anticipated consumer demand for its services. The addition of Club W is an interesting one for Amplify, which is headed by Paul Bricault and Richard Wolpert, in that Club W is already generating cash. The company said it is currently on track for $2M in annualized revenues, having tripled its revenues in the last three months.
Amplify has mostly provided traditional, accelerator resources like seed capital, office space, and mentorship, to early stage firms. In this case, Club W already has 11 employees, revenues, and offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver. Financial details of the strategic partnership were not announced by the two. Bricault, who now sits on Club W's board, said that Club W is in a market that is "radically underserved", and worth $34 billion.
Club W's service makes personalized recommendation of wine to users, and then ships three bottles a month--or more, if a user selects additional bottles--on subscription. Geoff McFarlane, one of the co-founders of Club W, said that the site is expected to ship somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 bottles of wine to consumers.