Vivino, a Danish startup that offers a wine app with world’s largest wine database, has received 60 million Danish kronor (over 8 million euro) in Series A investment from Skype co-founder Janus Friis, SEED Capital, Creandum and Balderton Venture Capital, reports Trendsonline.dk.
“I am very happy and proud for the team that we were able to get an investment of this size. I actually think that this is the biggest Series A investment ever received in Denmark. It’s very rare to get as much funding for a company of our size, but it’s this means a lot to us,” says Heini Zachariassen, co-founder and CEO.
The investment will primarily be put to product development and strengthening of Vivino brand on global scale. The management will also create development sites in Copenhagen apart from the ones in Ukraine and India. The office in Amager will increase from 12 to 25 people. And there is also a plan to set up an office in the USA.
“My partner and I have worked with outsourcing for ten years and have become quite sharp with it. But there is no doubt that one can get a lot out of having its developers up close so we are looking now for developers here in Denmark for both iPhone, Android and web versions,” says Heini Zachariassen.
Vivino uses a unique OCR technology which has proven to be effective. The service offers information about more than 1.3 million types of wine that includes their price, origin and other characteristics. After one year Vivino already has over 1 million users worldwide and daily wine scan of about 2 million items compared to 80,000 for only a year ago.
Vivino’s market size is similar to the music market. Wine market value is estimated to be of about 30-40 billion dollars. With no established players it has a huge potential and investors see it.
“We are very happy that our business model to identify and develop startups and then attract new capital from major investment funds for their expansion is starting to work. SEED Capital is still the biggest investor in Vivino. We are happy with the market potential and Vivino’s position as it has already taken a leading role in a market that no one has put on,” says Niels Vejrup Carlsen from SEED Capital
The first contact with Balderton Venture Capital has happened by chance. Yet, a year later it has resulted in a productive cooperation.
“Balderton are always looking for good contractors that offer something of value to a large market, with a clear plan to build a sustainable and profitable organization. We invest primarily in innovative European companies that are helping to change the landscape. Vivino meets all the criteria we are looking for. We believe they will also be successful is seizing the momentum in the Americas,” says Roberto Bonanzinga, partner at Balderton Capital. ”
