Lot18 curates, markets and retails fine

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

online. Lot18 has offices in New York, New York and Napa,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Lot18 sells wines from around the globe. Lot18 also creates custom wines and brands, including Axiom, Mythmaker, Finial, Q8, Amukan, Loophole, and Neptune's Trident, among others.

History

Lot18 was launched in October 2010 by Philip J. K. James, who previously founded Snooth, a wine information

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

, and Kevin Fortuna, the former CEO of

Quigo Quigo Technologies, Inc. was a privately owned search engine marketing company headquartered in New York City. Founded in Israel in 2000 by Yaron Galai and Oded Itzhak, it developed proprietary search solutions for the online contextual advertisin ...

, a search-engine marketing company that was acquired by AOL. Lot18 began as a flash sale website for wines, with a business model similar to that of

Gilt Groupe Gilt is an online shopping and lifestyle website based in the United States, launched in 2007. On January 7, 2016, The company was sold to Hudson's Bay Company for approximately $250 million. Prior to the Hudson’s Bay acquisition, sales were ex ...

. The company initially focused on providing access to smaller, lesser-known wine producers. It later expanded its offerings to include large, well-known brands, as well as custom-produced wines. Lot18 secured its initial funding from "friends and family." In November 2010, Lot18 raised $3 million in its Series A round of funding from

venture capital firm Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

FirstMark Capital FirstMark Capital is a venture capital firm based in New York City. FirstMark invests in early-stage technology companies, frequently as the first institutional investor. Notable investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Shopify, DraftKings, Upwork, ...

. In May 2011,

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

firm

New Enterprise Associates New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With ~$25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of the w ...

led a Series B $10 million round of funding, with participation from

. In November 2011,

firm

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ...

led the Series C funding of $30 million, with participation from

and

Acquisitions

In December 2011, Lot18 acquired

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

based Vinobest to begin its expansion into

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. Vinobest was founded in 2010 by Paul Guillet and Thierry Rochas. Early in 2012, Lot18 began operations in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

with Will Armitage, the company's general manager for Europe indicating they hoped to sign up a million British members. The company later dissolved the UK operations, stating that the "supermarket's stranglehold on the U.K. market proved too powerful" to compete with. In January 2013, Lot18 acquired the assets of Santa Rosa, Calif., based Tasting Room, which was founded by former

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

executive Tim Bucher, and had developed a system for creating sampler kits with 50 milliliter bottles. Lot18 subsequently utilized the assets of Tasting Room as part of creating its personalized wine club, which also goes by the name Tasting Room.

Tasting Room

Lot18 launched wine club Tasting Room to the public in May 2013. Utilizing the bottling technology developed by Tasting Room, Inc., Lot18 develops unique wine profiles for its club members. The club's customers taste mini bottles of wine and rate them online to create customized shipments of standard-size bottles of wine. Tasting Room is also the company that powers the Forbes Wine Club. As of 2022, Tasting Room Wine Club management and fulfillment have transferred t
Gold Medal Wine Club
https://tastingroomwineclub.com/

References

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External links

*http://www.lot18.com/ *http://www.tastingroom.com/ *http://www.snooth.com/ Online retailers of the United States Companies based in New York City