Alcohol platform Flying Embers closes $20m Series C round

Organic alcohol platform Flying Embers has closed a multimillion-dollar Series C funding round, led by Beam Suntory. 

The company raised $20 million during the round, which will be used to accelerate the growth of Flying Embers’ current brand portfolio as it scales its operations and searches for premium hand-crafted natural and organic drink options. 

In addition, Flying Embers will invest in the growing hard kombucha and hard seltzer categories, and further support its sales infrastructure for wholesale and retail partners. 

The round also included follow-on investments from Power Plant Ventures, Quadrant Capital, Monogram Cap, and Beechwood Capital.

“We are starting the year with strong momentum behind our platform of breakthrough premium brands. Our total business grew over 93% last year as we focused on expanding our placements in key accounts. Hard kombucha continues to scale nationally, outperforming general alcohol trends as early adopting markets and retailers have bet big on beyond-beer categories,” said Bill Moses, founder and CEO of Flying Embers.

He added: “Our organic hard seltzers alone have grown by more than 284% this year. Despite what seems to be a category shakeout, consumers continue to seek out sophisticated flavour combinations and quality plant-based ingredients. We are poised to expand our existing kombucha and differentiated seltzer brands through our robust national distributor network, while continuing to test innovations in 2022. With this latest round of funding, Flying Embers is well-positioned to further disrupt beyond-beer categories and scale the business nationally in 2022 and beyond.”

In November 2019, Fermented Sciences, the maker of hard kombucha brand Flying Embers, closed a $25 million Series B funding round.