Dania wine appliance firm Plum raises another $10M
Dania Beach-based Plum, which developed a wine preservation appliance for hotels and consumers also called Plum, has raised an additional $10 million in a round led by Las Olas Venture Capital in Fort Lauderdale.
The venture capital will finance Plum’s expansion of its hotel program, helping to market the appliance to high-end hotels looking to add guest amenities. Currently, Plum appliances are being used by The Confidante Miami Beach, Waldorf Astoria’s The Roosevelt New Orleans and Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley at East Palo Alto, Calif.
The wine appliances are added to premium rooms and used at tasting events where guests can try wines by the glass. Plum said it expects its appliance to be in more hotels end.
The company was founded by former Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Koretz, who moved to South Florida and decided to start Plum in 2015. He hired local engineers from Motorola, Google and Amazon’s Lab126 to develop the Plum appliance, which chills, preserves and dispenses wine by the glass without ever opening the bottle.
The two wine-bottle appliance has a motorized needle that pierces the foil or cork, simultaneously extracting wine and injecting argon gas to prevent oxidation. Since no air is let in, the wine stays fresh for at least 90 days, according to Koretz. than 50 by year’s
The appliance also is a silent refrigerator that chills each bottle to the recommended serving temperature and provides information about the wine.
Besides hotels, Plum is available to consumers for about $2,000 through the Plum.wine website, and through Williams Sonoma’s gift catalog and website.
In 2017, Las Olas Venture Capital co-led with Silicon Valleybased Khosla Ventures and angel investors in $5 million and $4 million investment rounds for Plum. Las Olas Venture Capital invests in early stage startups with a primary focus on business-to-business technology companies.
Mark Volchek, a founding partner of the venture capital firm, said the new round of financing “will allow Plum to scale production and add to the team to fuel even faster growth.”