UK: ZX Ventures buys beer subscription service BeerBods

ABInBev’s venture capital division ZX Ventures has acquired UK based buys beer club and subscription service BeerBods.

Matt Lane, who founded BeerBods in late 2012 as the first beer subscription service in the UK, posted in a blog on the company’s website today that “it has become increasingly clear that in order for BeerBods to reach its full potential, we need a partner that can help take us to the next level. We’ve therefore taken the decision to join forces with Beer Hawk who have acquired our business in full. We’ll be working with them to help build the UK’s leading retailer of craft beer.”

Lane also said that he and his team “will still be making BeerBods (we’ll be keeping the brand) and our community, with the help of the Beer Hawk team, as good as it can possibly be.” Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Beer Hawk, an online beer shop with a stock of over 1,000 beers from all around the world, was founded by Mark Roberts and Chris France, also in 2012. The company was acquired by ZX Ventures, the innovation arm of AB InBev, in 2016.

In March, AB InBev announced to reinforce its efforts for online beer sales. Currently, the online beer market in the U.S. makes up less than 1% of the overall sales but is expected to outgrow the market (inside.beer, 19.3.2019).

The news about the acquisition comes just one week after the announcement that ZX Ventures has purchased the remaining stake in Swish Beverages, a California-based company innovative wine company (inside.beer, 28.6.2019).

Earlier in June, ZX Ventures said it had bought a stake in Wave Soda, a two-year-old California-based startup producing a low-calorie soda made of 85 percent sparkling water and 15 percent fruit juice (inside.beer, 18.6.2019).

Other investments by ZX Ventures this year included New York-based startup Protes which is developing protein snacks made of spent grains (inside.beer, 19.3.2019), and the remaining stake in RateBeer, a US-based consumer review beer website (inside.beer, 19.2.2019).

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