Bright Cellars is a six-year-old, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based subscription wine seller that personalizes selections by using customer data to guide winemaker partners. The company shifted from sending third-party wines to commissioning and tweaking proprietary blends based on member preferences. It says it has tested around 600 wines and typically has 40–50 wines live on the platform at any time. Bright Cellars declined to share subscriber counts but reported an acceleration in new subscribers during the pandemic; average bottle price on the platform is $20–$25. The company ships primarily from Santa Rosa and works with grape suppliers on the U.S. West Coast as well as internationally. It remains focused on D2C, is largely decentralized, and sees opportunities to monetize its consumer data or partner with legacy wine firms in the future. Bright Cellars is a nearly four-year-old, 40-person Milwaukee startup that sells wines directly to consumers on a subscription basis. The company uses a quiz to create taste profiles and personalize monthly wine selections for its members. It is also quietly building a portfolio of its own wines with different suppliers while continuing to ship under others' labels. Founders Richard Yau and Joe Laurendi say the member data they collect is valuable, and although Bright Cellars does not sell its findings today, it may offer aggregated insights in the future. The founders were roommates at MIT and remained in Milwaukee after early admission to the gener8tor accelerator. The broader market shows potential: consumers spent roughly $3 billion on wine delivered to doorsteps last year, and direct-to-consumer wine shipments rose 9% to 6.3 million cases between 2017 and 2018. Bright Cellars is a Milwaukee-based personalized wine subscription service powered by a data-science-driven engine that captures direct feedback to understand millennial wine preferences. The service delivers curated wine selections to subscribers based on that data-science profiling. Led by co-founder and CEO Richard Yau, the company completed the gener8tor accelerator program in 2015. Its subscriber base has grown to more than 22,000 members and revenue has grown tenfold. The team has more than 40 employees. The recent funding will be used to continue growing operations in Milwaukee. Bright Cellars is a Milwaukee-based personalized wine subscription service founded in 2014 by MIT graduates Richard Yau (CEO) and Joseph Laurendi (CTO). The company uses a machine-learning algorithm developed by its co-founders to match members to wines. After each wine is reviewed by members, the recommendation engine learns more about their actual preferences. Bright Cellars graduated from the gener8tor accelerator in May 2015. The company has 11 employees and intends to use the seed funding to continue building out a complete member experience and to grow the team. The recent financing will support product and team expansion efforts.

Total raised

$25M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Sep 2021