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Pernod Ricard has taken a minority share in Singapore-based Ecospirits, a low waste distributer for the wine and spirits industry.
The drinks group’s venture capitalist arm Convivialité Ventures joined a $10m Series A funding round for Ecospirits, along with with circular economy investment fund Closed Loop Partners. Leading Asian and global investors, including food sector private equity investor, Proterra Asia, Singapore-based growth stage investor Pavilion Capital, and Ecospirits’ existing investor, Wavemaker Partners, also took part.
Ecospirits is a startup focusing on low carbon, low waste, closed-loop distribution systems.
Pernod began partnering with Ecospirits in March 2022. It transports some of its premium brands in Hong Kong and Singapore to hospitality venues on fully reusable 4.5-litre glass containers, thus reducing waste and carbon emissions resulting from the production and transportation of bottles and other secondary packaging.
The new funding will accelerate Ecospirits’ research and development programme and help the company scale up its hardware and software.
It will also fund geographical expansion into key markets worldwide, including the US, and grow its regional customer and engineering teams in Miami, London, Singapore and Shanghai.
The investment comes as Pernod Ricard is in the process of expanding its partnership with Ecospirits to markets outside Asia.
Stéphane Longuet, co-founder and MD of Convivialité Ventures, said: “We are very pleased to participate in this investment, which will help develop a company offering such an innovative solution to our industry, by drastically reducing waste and carbon emissions. Ecospirits’ approach is perfectly in line with our group’s objectives to reduce its carbon emissions and we are looking forward to using it on a large scale around the world.”
Sui Ling Cheah, Ecospirits executive board chairman, added: “We are thrilled with the successful close of our Series A round, which not only validates Ecospirits’ impressive progress in building a comprehensive technology platform, but also marks a significant milestone in our journey to global scale. The future gets brighter when more resources are invested in circular economy innovation.”
Morning update
On the markets this morning, the FTSE 100 is up 0.5% to 7,781.6pts.
Risers include Kerry Group, up 3.1% to €95.08, Science in Sport, up 2.9% to 14p and Nichols, up 2.7% to 1,075.2p.
Fallers include McBride, down 4% to 31.2p, Tesco, down 2.2% to 271.6p and THG, down 2.1% to 80.5p.
Yesterday in the City
The FTSE 100 fell back 0.3% to 7,741.3pts yesterday.
Compass Group was one of the sector’s few notable risers, climbing 1.3% to 2,091p after first-half profits passed £1bn as the catering giant continued its recovery from the pandemic.
Other risers included Science in Sport, up 4.6% to 13.6p, Deliveroo, up 1.7% to 109.1p, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, up 1.1% to €60.00 and McBride, up 0.8% to 32.5p.
The day’s fallers included Ocado, down 4.2% to 455p, Tesco, down 2.4% to 277.9p, Naked Wines, down 2.3% to 108.8p, Bakkavor, down 2.1% to 92.8p, Finsbury Food Group, down 2.1% to 93p, Nichols, down 1.9% to 1,047.5p and PayPoint, down 1.8% to 430p.
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