The Italian startups making wine economy greater than ever

Wine economy is drawing attention by Italian startups, each with its own offer, its own idea and its own business model. That of wine is a roomy market: our country twice in a row has confirmed itself as the world’s largest wine producer, better than France and it’s the leading exporter in USA. In organic wine sector we are the best in class. Raw good, brand, culture and tradition live here indeed, shortage is in the confidence in the e-commerce. According to this article, wine is a potential market worth 10 billion in Italy and 250 worldwide, a very large market where scalability of a startup has a way of expressing and determining its success. In Italy as in Europe, online and e-commerce are still largely underused channels, therefore with broad growth margins for years to come. The startups that make wine e-commerce run side by side with the leading wine brands not always promoting direct sales on their website, outsourcing it to other websites and using the web to spread the brand and interact with the audience, according to the infographic below. (part of the research performed by FleishmanHillard, consulting firm).    

Startups that make us dream big

Why we love them? Strong companies, steadfast teams, smart business models, remarkable and original offering that can lead the way, in an industry where Italy and its traditional wine culture are already the cream of the crop, and even in terms of innovation and e-commerce results can be the same. Some scaleup already exist, good to go on. Here’s 21 random, if someone is missing, pls let us know.   VINO75 is an online wine shop offering a large variety of wine from the leading Italian and foreign wine brands supporting the choice of award-winning wines and top wines, daily special offers and exclusive promotions. Italian and foreign wines, award-winning wines, shipment in special package. Delivery 48 hours (not for all wines). Nana Bianca was its incubator and in 2017 gave rise to new 1.5 million investment; in 2016 received an investment of 250,000 euros and signed an agreement with Alibaba to sell within the Chinese market. It’s the first Italian e-commerce company to sign an agreement with the Chinese giant. www.vino75.com/   Tannico – The best selection of Italian wines at a discounted price (flash sales). About 9000 labels, from extremely rare to niche ones, 1500 wine cellars, unbeatable offers on fine wines. Shockproof and temperature resistant packaging. Founded by Marco Magnocavallo, a serial digital entrepreneur, this startup has already raised over 5.5 million euros, but above all the market rewards it: Customers are over 50,000 and bottles sold over 500,000 per year. Since its foundation to date, Tannico has doubled its turnover: according to forecasts, revenues for 2017 will reach over 12 million euros. Tannico holds a fee between 25 and 40 percent on the sale and manages to deliver the bottles within a day’s time in Milan and in 24 hours in the rest of Italy. A warehouse of over 2000 square meters is near Milan and another one is in the UK. At the latest VinItaly Tannico launched WinePlatform, an e-commerce platform for foreign customers wishing to buy directly from winemakers, for which Tannico’ service is basically solve any bureaucratic issue linked to shipments. Moreover Tannico has a specific Ho.Re.Co. line designed for shops, traders and hotels and has developed a platform (Tannico Intelligence) for big data analysis, dedicated to b2b namely wineries and consortia, an example whereof is this analysis presented at the last VinItaly. It is a leader in the Italian market: every 10 bottles sold online, 3 are delivered by Tannico. www.tannico.it Wineowine – The startup offers online sales of premium wines selected from small winemakers, that the website enhances through an emotional path. The company’s business is not just the sale of wine: it begins by trying to make wine producers aware of e-commerce. The business model is based on flash sales and the company also owns a patent for innovative packaging. Founded by two young guys from Abruzzo Eros Durante and Federico De Cerchio, Wineowine, headquartered in Rome and Berlin today, has more than 100,000 members and 200 partnership with winemakers, raising 1.5 million euros of venture capital funds to date, and planning to sell more than 200,000 bottles in 2017. Activities in Germany started three months ago and already worth about 10% of the overall value. www.wineowine.com ViniExport – Viniexport.com is an e-commerce B2B trading platform: the logical approach of the website is in terms of designations of origin and not just single label. Thus the market is “blind” namely producers and buyers do not know each other until the transaction is closed. Thanks to this mechanism, the market is fair: there is no cronyism linked to the reputation of the label; only the designation of origin and the producer’s price-quality ratio are important. In summary, Viniexport.com replicates on a global scale the stock market mechanism with which the wine and alcohol buying monopolies of Scandinavia and Canada have been operating for decades. www.viniexport.com Winelivery – Your favorite wine delivered right away! The focus of this startup is on immediate delivery, in 30 minutes, currently in Milan only. Crowdfundme.it hosted a recent campaign worth 150,000 euros, with a final score of 1.2 million. Founded by two friends under 30, Francesco Magro and Andrea Antinori, inspired by the US Minibar Delivery app, the company quickly became fast growing, reaching growth rates of 200% per month. The selection includes over 1500 labels of wine, craft beer, industrial beer, liquor, spirits, cocktail kit … www.winelivery.com   The Winefathers – Wine lovers can consider simplistic just buying and drinking it. The idea of this startup is to have a different impact on the wine industry: The Winefathers is the one and only website that allows those passionate about wine worldwide to support Italian vintner, economically contributing to the realization of their wine project (for example, produce an unforgettable Barolo). Basically, it’s a sort of crowdfunding reward. Of course, you can even buy wine! www.thewinefathers.com   Svinando – This startup, born in Turin in 2013, has suggested from the outset the idea of the online Wine Club, based on a model of flash sales for quality wines, mainly from small producers, often precious bottles otherwise unlikely to be found, chosen one by one, by a team of experts, and delivered to your home. The mechanism is that of private sales – sales organized as events, limited in time and quantity available – enriched by a strongly editorial approach. Thirty-year-old team led by Riccardo Triolo. www.svinando.com   Xtrawine – Wine shop, wine club, sale of wine, nothing is missing. According to date of birth Xtrawine is probably the forerunner of wine startups, having started its business in 2008 thanks to the cooperation and enthusiasm of a group of friends sommelier, and IT entrepreneurs, driven by their passion for good wine and confidence in the making of the internet. It currently works throughout the EC and in most other countries. Xtrawine offers wines in the best Italian and international guides, French Champagne, accessories. Thanks to a sophisticated filter system the website perfectly helps the user when choosing among tons of labels. https://www.xtrawine.com   Vino à porter – Artificial intelligence and experience-based marketing for the enhancement and sale of wine is what this very young startup deals with, whose co-founder Marco Piazzalunga we have recently interviewed. The startup was founded in Milan by three under 30, Matteo Parisi, Marco Piazzalunga and Lorenzo Moro, aiming to “simplify the world of wine”, giving users the opportunity to find a wine suitable for their tastes and different occasions, in a smart way, relying on an AI algorithm, with a virtual sommelier that, through some questions finds the product to be recommended. www.vinoaporter.com   Vinix – Wine social commerce, ie purchasing groups. Users can join the team and buy wine directly from the wineries, with discounts ranging from 10% for very small groups up to 50%. Shipment, as in all purchasing groups, is made only to the team leader. In short, the more you are, the more you save. www.vinix.com     Callmewine – It is an online wine shop, with a collection of 3300 labels (white, red, sparkling and champagne) and 500 spirits. It offers discounts without focusing on low prices only, but rather on selections (from biodynamic to wine in jar) and quality. Few frills, plenty of variety, refined products, but not necessarily grand-at-all, known wineries and many small producers with wines difficult to find, pretty complete information. www.callmewine.com   Viniamo – It’s a communication and marketing startup from two main partners, Twelve and Digital Magics, a communications and marketing company operating since 2008 in the e-commerce sector and the well-known digital project incubator respectively. The idea is to propose wine in a new, contemporary, more Youth oriented way, creating a simple experience like finding a song on Spotify. In fact, wine selections are sold just like playlists. www.viniamo.it  

Wine economy, not only e-commerce

Startups entering the wine business are not just the ones of e-commerce, but even those dealing with smart labels, marketing, big data, analytics.   Viveat – It provides products with a digital identity, enriching the wine-loving purchase experience and traceability through smart tags (QR-code or Nfc tag) that, if framed with the mobile phone, gives access to information and Multimedia content on the product. The winemakers, on the other hand, receive information about users, with the possibility to deliver targeted offers. For data transmission and certification of their source, startup also uses blockchain technology. www.viveat. com Winedering – Winedering is a kind of Wine TripAdvisor and is the first international online platform to deal exclusively with Winemakers and Wine Tours. The mission is to offer a powerful and reliable marketing tool based on the reviews of the wine lover. Winedering is completely free and very easy to use for winemakers, as the business is focused on wine tours, the so called wine tourism. www.winedering. com   Wenda – It implements an IoT solution for the quality and authenticity of wine bottles over time. A device monitors key storage and traceability data that can be accessed through the App or Digital Platform. The solution is scalable to most perishables goods, food and others. The startup was established in February 2015, in Bologna by the passion of young ambitious and more experienced professionals, the CEO is Antonio Catapano. www.wenda-it.com   Enolò – Enolò is a technology platform for B2B that exploits the new technology opportunities to offer advanced communications, marketing, and logistics services to develop trading activities for winemakers and retailers. In particular it is aimed at bottled wine producers of any business dimension, Horeco, wine bars, wine shops, purchasing groups, associations. The technology platform of Enolò is proprietary, divided into a number of modules and management applications through which the user can access a connected and integrated marketplace with the main social channels, manage trading, communication activities and logistics and many more. www.enolo.it Horta – It has developed a platform of systems to support decisions on intelligent crop management (eg identifying essential parameters for farming from rain to soil properties) in order to provide farmers with specific indications on techniques to be adopted. Target are producers of cereals, wine grapes and table grapes, olives, fresh and shell fruit. www.horta-srl.it   Proxentia – It is developing a line of products to be used directly in production or storage sites, with minimal human intervention in three key areas, namely wine, milk and cereals. The aim is to provide information on key aspects related to the safety and quality of the products of the food farming chains. A reader, a set of disposable cartridges and mobile software that can serve an “ID card” of the delivered product. www.proxentia.com  

Up-and-comers

EzLab – It has developed WINE Blockchain technology (supported by EY in terms of guidelines) that allows tracking (certified by blockchain security code) of the production chain and the origin and processing of agricultural products (in particular BIO and DOCG). An innovative solution that can be applied throughout the food farming market, especially made in Italy, which enhances quality agricultural production, fights forgery in the food sector and at the same time guarantees end-user healthy and certified products. The latter, thanks to the smart label on the wine bottle (QR Code), will be able to verify the digital “identity card” from its digital media (smartphones or other mobile devices) from property to the entire process of cultivation, production and processing of wine, until its distribution. www.ezlab. it   wikiVinum – It is a project born in Aosta, which began in 2016 and for which the business model is not yet well defined, but was created with the aim of spreading the culture of wine in a simple but complete way worldwide, through a mobile app in wiki style, that is, as an online encyclopedia, managed synergistically by winemakers and users. A tool that contains all the knowledge, stories and curiosities over the wide and often little-known universe of wine, which allows producers and winemakers to take advantage from enhancing their work and the art-related traditions and knowledge of winegrowing. A highly respected information database, which required two years of work and is constantly evolving. Currently, this startup is underway to develop a system allowing to associate a unique and unrepeatable code for each product, read with the Scan feature from the app, thanks to which the consumption of each product is tracked in real time and worldwide. http://aziende.wikivinum. com   MyTailoredWine – It’s the platform where you can become a wine maker. This project offers the opportunity to create its own “tailor made” wine, personally selecting different options, including grapes and terroirs, winemaking techniques and refinement characteristics, up to the finalization of the final packaging. With the advice of oenologists and craftsmen, each client will be able to actively and interactively follow step by step through multimedia content, dedicated communications and vineyard encounters, all the production cycle at the base of their own wine. And make “your own wine”, 300 bottles. The price is determined on the basis of the choices made by the customer and will include: the cost of grapes, winemaking and all materials, including bottles, graphic design of the label and packaging, the value of professional advice and timely availability of oenologists. www.mytailoredwine.com   To report other Italian wine startup, or get more info, write to [email protected]

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