Leader in the Beverage-Alcohol ecommerce space, Flaviar, has acquired Speakeasy Company, another ecommerce agency that has become a strong competitor in the industry, the companies tell me exclusively. The merger is effective immediately and the companies will continue operations under the Flaviar brand.
Flaviar’s acquisition of Speakeasy will provide the company with a wider breadth of resources for its now-more than 600 clients, about half of which come from Speakeasy. That includes utilizing Speakeasy’s bicoastal US warehouses that will relieve many of the small retailers that act as local fulfillment centers for Flaviar. “Speakeasy thrives in creating experiences for its brand partners, largely because their warehouses allow them to,” says Flaviar CEO and cofounder Jugoslav Petkovic. “Now Flaviar will be able to leverage those experiences too, whereas before, a single retailer would be unlikely to fulfill it.”
Former Speakeasy brand partners that will now be working with Flaviar include Whistlepig, AU Vodka and Tesla Mezcal. “Nothing changes for clients,” says Petkovic. “We’re just merging together because we want to emphasize the totality of the services we offer.”
Flaviar CEO/cofounder Jugoslav Petkovic (left) and Grisa Soba, CPO/cofounder (right)
Flaviar, which has offices in the EU, UK, US and New Zealand, is a pioneering BevAlc ecommerce platform since taking off in 2012. Both companies help premium alcohol brands monetize online with proprietary softwares, but have distinct business models. “Flaviar remained focused on direct to consumer, where Speakeasy pivoted and started focusing on B2B,” says Josh Jacobs, CEO and cofounder of Speakeasy Co., who takes on a new leadership role with Flaviar. Flaviar will also benefit from the marketing and consulting side of Speakeasy’s business, which launched in 2015.
With this merger, Flaviar continues to mark its dominance in the BevAlc ecommerce space by providing brand partners more of a full-service agency to leverage, from designing a website and checkout service to converting brand loyalty into sales. Flaviar has accomplished this through a series of recent acquisitions, which have pushed it to compete more swiftly with other BevAlc ecommerce sites like ReserveBar.
In 2016, the company acquired Caskers, which shifted the company’s business model from a sample-size subscription service to selling full-size bottles. In 2023, it acquired both BarCart, which fused into “Flaviar Checkout”, and Wine-Searcher, an alcohol database with over 20 million products. Speakeasy largely benefits with all of the data it will now have from this database.
Former Speakeasy CEO/cofounder Josh Jacobs (left) and COO/cofounder Michael Bowen (right)
Speakeasy’s brand-building largely stems from creating experiences, like exclusive merchandise and cocktail kits, for customers of its brand clients. That’s similar, but on a much larger scale to Flaviar, which has continued its sample-size offerings through its annual advent calendars. Brands will now have the option, depending on the complexity of the merchandise, whether they want to utilize the retail method of fulfillment or the warehouse method. “When it comes to controlling what is today one million orders a year, it is very complicated to do that with a network of 100 of retailers where you need to call each one,” says Petkovic. These brands will now have more flexibility in choosing their route to market. Michael Bowen, COO and cofounder of Speakeasy says that “we’re going to offer the first hybrid model in the white-label space, offering both the network of retailers and warehouses.”
Petkovic says that Flaviar is not dropping any of its retail partners. “This is all extremely complementary,” he says. “All of the brands that utilize our technology to run their ecommerce have been asking for an option to do what Speakeasy is doing,” referring to the warehouse model of fulfillment. Additionally, both companies had built their systems around Shopify, a leader in ecommerce in general. “That’s why we had a very compatible, technical setup that enabled this merger,” Jacobs says.
Jacobs says he expects gross revenue to eclipse $100 million following the merger. “Great companies in the alcohol industry and across verticals are marketing companies first and foremost,” he says. “But because ecommerce is so nascent, they lack the internal expertise to fully maximize the opportunity, which is what we bring to the table.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.