Gary’s Empathy wines, not even a year old, sold to Constellation. Dude just prints money, wow.
Sold his restaurant reservation system to AMEX last year too.
Like some above, I really admire what the dude has done and built. He’s an entrepreneur in its truest sense. “Hey, I have a cool idea! I’m going to see if I can make it happen.”
Oh damn, HE was behind Resy?? Amazing
Resy was co-founded in 2014 by Ben Leventhal, co-founder of Eater.com, Michael Montero, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdTwist, and social-media entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.[6] In January 2017 the company raised $13 million from Airbnb, First Data Corporation and earlier investors RSE Ventures and Lerer Hippeau Ventures.[7] In April 2018, Resy enabled participating restaurants to list their properties on Airbnb through Resy’s booking system and also acquired ClubKviar, a restaurant-booking platform in Spain.[8]
In 2018, Resy acquired its competitor, Reserve, a reservation app launched by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp’s incubator, Expa.[9] In 2019, American Express acquired Resy and integrated it into its own mobile app as an offering for some rewards card members.[10] As of 2019, Resy handles 2.6 million diners per week.[11]
“Constellation’s infrastructure allows me to deliver on my dream of making the best $20 wine in the world,” says @garyvee.
Ah, but of course.
That scared me - don’t give him any ideas
1 Like
Thankfully, we won’t need to worry about that. GaryV was born in Belarus.
Hey everyone! Gary’s partner in Empathy Wines here. As a long-time Berserkers member (more lurking than engaging), I am beyond thankful to this community. I’ve learned a ton about the industry, and fine wine in general, by reading and participating on these forums. And I’ve made lots of online-to-offline friendships with lots of you. Appreciate the support and kind words (and I’m sending a wink-and-a-smile to the skeptics, haha)
Gary’s Empathy wines, not even a year old, sold to Constellation. Dude just prints money, wow.
Has anyone tired these wines? Seems like Constellation tries to buy everything.
When I lived in NYC he came to a few offlines when Paul J. invited him. I don’t think he was a heavy wineboard participant at the time. He was a lot of fun actually and I’m glad to see him prospering.
I’m amazed that he’s behind Rezy too; I’ve used that a couple of times.
One step closer to buying the Jets.
I wrote about him as President of Wine Library. Even ignoring legalities, of course he is totally unqualified to be President of the United States… nobody that unqualified could ever get to the Oval Office… oh, wait…
Dan Kravitz
Can’t speak to Empathy wines. But Gary seems like a genuinely nice person, at least in the few interactions I’ve had with him, he knows and drinks well. Congratulations to him and Jon.
I still admire him the most for his wine tasting videos, the blizzard one was epic, but my all time favorites were with his father Sasha, I hope they are both doing well. 
He is the reason (through my Father in law) that I discovered Bedrock because of a YouTube video with him and Suckling blinding the North Coast Syrah…so I’m all-in on the Gary V fan club
A little more on why Constellation acquired Empathy: https://twitter.com/cheddar/status/1278385856462626822
Empathy sold 15k cases in its first year of operations. More impressive from a logistics standpoint than sales/marketing - one would expect Gary V to know how to market and sell wine by now. At $20 a bottle, that’s 3.6M in revenue. With an industry average of 60% gross margin in the premium segment, the bacon is fatty but there ain’t much of it. What did Constellation pay? Terms haven’t been disclosed. Unilever paid 1B for Dollar Shave at 5x revenues and that was a fairly rich multiple versus valuation from its most recent funding round. Dollar Shave was a much larger business vs Empathy and wine isn’t razor blades but it’s still a consumer and packaged goods (CPG) product. Empathy was around for 18 months so 3.6M in revenue isn’t an exact annual revenue figure…I am going to say 15M was the acquisition price.
Empathy sells a $20 wine, color-coded right down to the labels. (Selling a random rose for $20 is not quite as innovative as SpaceX but it is certainly bold). For people on this board, $20 is barely an entry-level wine but for overwhelming number of consumers, $20 is a premium product. I guess Constellation hope is that the marriage will produce a $20 equivalent of a Two-Buck Chuck, sold online direct to younger-ish consumers and propelled by Gary’s verbal fusillades that are already asymptotically approaching Rimmerman. Constellation should buy Garagiste too while they’re at it, kill two wild turkeys with one pebble. I am not an Empathy or Constellation customer but as someone said upstream, I respect the hustle. Since Constellation sold 30 lower-priced brands to Gallo and started focusing on a premium segment, is it time to go long on $STZ? Maybe…but they’ll need a lot more than Empathy to move the needle.
My only question is why an early exit. Pressured by investors, promised a juicy earn-out or…just didn’t want to deal with the actual headache of running a larger business?
Jon Troutman - you’re welcome to comment 
Wines are very solid. I’ve tried their first vintage of their red blend and this years Rose and White blend. Definitely a value at about $20/bottle as the wines overdeliver. Great to have on hand to just drink when I don’t feel like using brainpower to pick out something else.
Whoa, Ken Brown brings it!
All things I was thinking and then some.
Great post.
I think $15M might be a little rich. Not saying there isn’t a track record for overpaying. Hello “craft beer” is the next big thing.
But if constellation can make rose for $3 per bottle and stuff down the empathy channel for $20 then it can pay for itself.
He was just on CNBC.
1 Like