London, March 05, 2024: WineFi, a UK-based fintech platform, has announced a strategic investment from Coterie Holdings, a leading UK fine wine group.
WineFi, which seeks to provide straightforward and cost-effective access to fine wine as an asset class, has grown rapidly since launch in October 2023, quickly becoming an established challenger in the wine investment market.
Commenting on the investment, WineFi’s Founder and CEO, Callum Woodcock, said: “Coterie is the most ambitious and forward-thinking business in the wine trade right now. As a young business with big plans, we are thrilled to be able to leverage their deep expertise and infrastructure as we continue to aggressively scale”.
The investment from Coterie Holdings follows the success of WineFi’s pre-seed round, led by SFC Capital, with support from Founders Capital and an array of high-profile angels — including incoming Inchcape Chairman Jerry Buhlmann.
Michael Saunders, CEO of Coterie Holdings, comments: “WineFi has swiftly demonstrated its prowess in attracting a historically untapped demographic to the world of fine wine. As we move ahead, we look forward to exploring how Coterie’s network and ecosystem can further support WineFi’s mission and bring more emerging fine wine lovers onto this intuitive and user-friendly platform to grow their collections.”
Alongside the investment, WineFi announced that Michael Saunders will also be joining WineFi’s board of directors. This comes shortly after WineFi’s appointment of Crowdcube’s former Chief Growth Officer, Jonathan Keeling.
Michael Saunders, who has more than 40 years’ experience in the wine sector and was previously CEO of Bibendum, joined Coterie Holdings as CEO in January this year. Coterie Holdings – which owns leading merchants Lay & Wheeler and Hallgarten & Novum Wines, as well as a wine lending platform, Jera, and state-of-the-art bonded fine wine storage facility, Coterie Vaults – has its sights set on becoming a market leading fine wine group.
“This strategic partnership marks a real milestone in WineFi’s evolution. and our ability to offer our customers access to great assets at great valuations, at scale” says Woodcock. “We are excited to work with Michael and the rest of the Coterie team as we build a category defining brand”.
Further information can be found at www.winefi.co.uk and https://coterieholdings.com/.
