Pronghorn, an initiative focused on boosting Black spirits entrepreneurship, announced today an investment in cocktail mixer and beverage brand Hella Cocktail Co that will also see the company’s co-founder, Jomaree Pinkard, join as its new CEO and managing director. The size of the investment was not disclosed.
Pinkard will now oversee Proghorn’s goal to fill 1,800 industry roles and make 57 Black-owned brand investments within the next 10 years. Since launching in February, the program has invested in four Black-owned brands: Ten To One, Tequila with Friends, Den of Thieves and Ego Tequila.
“I am thrilled to be joining Pronghorn,” said Pinkard. “I look forward to helping drive wealth and economic power to the next generation of Black entrepreneurs and business leaders in the beverage alcohol space.”
The capital investment in New York-based Hella Cocktail Co. will be coupled with access to consultation from Pronghorn’s team of industry experts to help accelerate the brand’s growth. During Pinkard’s time at the company, founded in 2012, he has helped usher the botanical mixer through several strategic brand iterations and product innovations, enabling the bootstrapped brand to grow from a prototype in a mason jar to a national multi-million-dollar venture. Hella Cocktail Co. now offers non-alcoholic sparkling aperitifs, bitters, and premium classic cocktail mixers in major retailers nationwide.
“As a co-founder at Hella Cocktail Co alongside Tobin Ludwig and Eddie Simeon, I experienced first-hand what it was like to be someone who had to work harder and smarter with less access to capital, networks and know-how,” said Pinkard.
Pinkard will transition to chairman of Hella Cocktail Co., while co-founders Ludwig and Simeon will continue to run day-to-day operations.
After earning his Masters in Business Administration from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Pinkard’s career journey has taken him from helping to develop and implement The Salvation Army’s September 11 World Trade Center Recovery Program to an independent consulting role for the National Football League.
Since its inception, Hella Cocktail has prioritized finding value-aligned partners to help amplify the company’s inclusive and community-oriented mission, he said. When nationwide civil rights protests in 2020 sparked larger conversations about equity and diversity in the food and beverage industries, Pinkard recommitted to his calling to open doors for other entrepreneurs.
“I identified partners or helped create associations within our industry to help foster the work of advocating for diverse representation, amplification and creative access points for founders of color,” he said.
Through that work, he connected with the founders of Pronghorn; After learning more about Hella Cocktail Co.’s community of bartenders, commercial success, and like-minded partners, establishing a formal partnership to access Pronghorn’s networks and resources made sense, said Pinkard.
“Jomaree shares the same modern, disruptive approach to building companies as we do at Pronghorn, making him the perfect fit to lead our company and ensure investments in other Black-owned spirits companies are successful,” said Pronghorn co-founder Dia Simms.
Pronghorn was co-founded by spirits industry veterans Simms, Erin Harris, and Dan Sanborn. Diageo announced its backing as anchor investor in 2021.
The company’s earmarked goals come from a reverse engineering of the representation of Black employees and ownership in spirits: while Black Americans represent 12% of alcohol consumers across categories, they make up just 7.8% of the sector’s labor force and 2% of executives in the industry, according to Pronghorn’s research. The company expects to boost industry-wide representation and generate $2.4 billion in economic value for the Black community by 2032. That framework is a template for diversifying any industry, said Pinkard, but Pronghorn is starting with Black Americans and the spirits industry.
“I’m excited about the next part of my journey and what it means for creating a legacy in shaping diverse landscapes for beverages and cocktailing now and hopefully for other underrepresented groups and industries in the near future,” he said.