Winery-direct-to-consumer startup Winestyr raises $3 million to give users exclusive access to the best small-production wines in America

There are thousands of wineries in the United States and most of their wines never make it to store shelves, restaurants, or your glass. Winestyr is a Chicago-based winery-direct-to-consumer startup on a mission to bring exclusive access to creative wineries and carefully crafted wines to consumers. Winestyr announced today it has raised $3 million in funding to fuel digital growth of their industry leading wine subscription and wine gift products and bring its showroom model to new markets across the country.

Founded in 2010 by Scott Washburn (Chief Growth Officer), Bob Wilson (Chief Executive Officer), and John Wilson (Chief Operating Officer), Winestyr aims to make discovering new wines and unique wineries fun and easy. Winestyr is the first full-service, direct-to-consumer wine marketplace. The company curates the best small production wines and makes them easily accessible to consumers across the country via their industry-leading wine clubs, wine gifts, and wine marketplace platform.

Growing at over 100% year over year since 2014, Winestyr launched their first brick & mortar showroom in Chicago to complement their digital wine marketplace. “Our appointment-only showroom model has been hugely successful because it gives us the opportunity to prove that we are the only wine service that selects nothing but top-quality, small-production wines from the country’s best wine producers. Our growing portfolio of over 120 real wineries speaks for itself,” says CEO Bob Wilson. “Once people try a selection of wines from our portfolio and learn more about what we do, they quickly understand the Winestyr difference. New members leave our showroom excited to tell their friends about the wine club they just joined.”

This commitment to quality, value, and authenticity didn’t go unnoticed. According to Continental Investors Paul Purcell, “The wine industry is perfectly ripe for the innovative curated commerce experience that Winestyr delivers. We are excited to work with the team to scale this unique marketplace in a compliant fashion while giving our community of tech savvy wine enthusiasts an Amazon-prime like customer experience.”

The only platform of its kind, Winestyr’s Direct-to-Consumer wine marketplace circumvents traditional wholesalers and retailers with proprietary technology developed wholly in house. This enables them to offer wines to consumers that generally cannot be found in restaurants or on store shelves. In an industry that hasn’t changed much in over a century, Winestyr is changing the way consumers discover, purchase, and gift authentic premium wine in America.

CEO Bob Wilson adds, “At the end of the day, if you’re interested in supporting small wineries and drinking America’s best hard-to-access wines, you should visit our website or one of our showrooms.”