By Erikka Askeland
An “on-demand” service that delivers alcoholic drinks within the hour has ambitious growth plans as it nears the completion of a £250,000 crowdfunder.
Drinkly has reached 99 per cent of its fundraising target from 300 investors – including one anonymous supporter who has pledged just over £100,000 – via crowdfunding service Seedrs. The fundraising exercise ends next week.
John Robertson, founder of the Edinburgh-based company, said consumers across the central belt as well as cities and towns in the north of England will be able to order via its app for iOS and Android or online by mid-February.
It currently operates in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
The cash will be used to bring on board more retailers, marketing the service to consumers to drive volume and continue the development of technology, he said.
The venture currently works with 15 retailers and plans to deliver a range of drinks from 150 retail units by the end of the year.
Growth will be enabled by the adoption of an upgraded platform that cuts down the effort required to incorporate new retailers onto the service – from a month to “a matter of days”, says Mr Robertson.
Drinkly is thought to be the first drinks-on-demand service in the UK, although the model is more commonplace in the US.
Robertson launched Drinkly in 2016 and it has quickly become a darling of the Edinburgh technology ecosystem. It initially secured £30,000 in pre-seed funding from Seed Haus. It caught the eyes of Brewdog founder James Watt and Stuart Middleton, chief commercial officer of Skyscanner, who both took stakes in the company in a £250,000 second investment round.
Mr Robertson said: “We have brought 300 more people into our investor pool – they could really help us identify how the business moves forward with their input.”
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