Drizly Inc., a Boston-based maker of an iPhone app for on-demand(within an hour) beer, wine and liquor delivery in Boston and New York City, has raised $2.25 million in seed funding. Backers include Atlas Venture, Abundance Partners, Breakaway Ventures, Continental Advisors, Fairhaven Capital and Reynolds & Company Venture Partners.
The start up brings back memories of my high school years when we would skip school, play poker all day and order beer deliveries from the local package store, who looked the other way when a kid answered the door. Somehow I think Drizly will be more careful, as penalties today can be substantial for underage purchasing.
This will be a challenge, especially in Massachusetts, where the liquor lobby has a) successfully maintained three tier consumer direct delivery models, and b) kept beer and wine out of supermarkets for, well, ever. They may not look to kindly on 'out-of-town' merchants who institute deliveries and take away their local market share.
But all in all, disintermediation will rule in the long term, even when it comes to liquor. The battle will be fierce--just witness the state-level liquor lobbies who continue to push to limit/repeal the Supreme Coutrt's 2005 decision to allow wineries to ship to out-of-state consumers. Drizly may not be the long-term winner in this space--legal costs could overwhelm them in the next few years as liquor lobbies go after their turf--but ultimately this will be a very successful business model as consumer get pretty much everything else delivered at home now.