Boston-based wine discovery app Drync announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2.1 million in seed and added Brian Carr, the former VP of Marketing at local productivity startup Springpad, as its chief operating officer.
A number of top VCs and Boston angels participated in the round, including Cross Link Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, KEC Ventures, Foundry Group, as well as HubSpot cofounder and CEO Dharmesh Shah and ScanScout cofounder Wakit Lau.
Back in August, the “Shazam for wine” app scored $900,000 in angel funding (which is included in Wednesday’s round) to boost its marketing efforts and product offering.
Started in 2008, Drync is really an ecommerce play and social platform for wine rolled into one sleek cross-platform app, designed for Android and iOS. The app uses image recognition technology to recognize over 3 million wines, so you can instantaneously scan, record and purchase a fine bottle of pinot that’s to your liking in seconds, as well as share your exciting new selection with followers.
The aforementioned social feature is one that the startup, fueled by the fresh funding, hopes to expand upon in the coming months.
“As we look to the future, we like to think a lot about wine discovery. We’re taking [the app] from the experiential commerce moment to answering the, ‘how do I buy wine that I love, with no risk?’ Drync cofounder and CEO Brad Rosen told BostInno.
Most recently, Drync added an activity feed, enabling people to offer up tips and recommend their top choices of white, red and rosé to friends and fellow aficionados.
“You can see what the community is drinking, and you can see what your friends are drinking,” explained Rosen, adding that Drync will also soon add palette-based recommendations.
Drync also announced Wednesday the roll out of its iPad app, a move that the company also hopes will encourage users to browse, discover and interact with the app’s community, which at the moment is around 200 monthly active users.
In addition, the startup is getting some good traction with the wine sales. Rosen noted that Drync did “almost half a million in sales” in Q1 of 2014, and was seeing a 60 percent increase in revenue month-over-month.
