Via Carota Craft Cocktails has raised over $11 million as it prepares to go deeper into New York and keep expanding on the East Coast.
The brand is expected to close the total $17.5 million that was listed on the Securities and Exchange Commission filing from last week, said chairman and co-founder Matt Leeds.
Founded in 2021, the brand was developed with and in homage to the eponymous New York City restaurant. Via Carota Craft Cocktails draws on the culinary expertise of the restaurant’s founders Jody Williams and Rita Sodi who are not part of the drink’s day-to-day operations but remain advisors to the business.
The cocktail company’s vision was to bring the aesthetic of the West Village neighborhood mainstay to the ready-to-drink category, Leeds said. “(Williams) and (Sodi)’s obsession with quality is the muse of the business.”
Leeds, formerly spent over eight years at L Catterton, before founding private CPG investment firm Forward Consumer Partners in 2023. Forward Consumer Partners led Via Carota’s round with additional investment from angel Kathryn Kranhold who is a board member.
CEO Lindsay Prociw, who is also president and managing director of Global Brands at Casa Lumbre, and CFO Jaime Bonetti (former Catalyst Spirits CFO) were also listed on the SEC filing.
Via Carota launched with the restaurant’s signature Negroni cocktail and has expanded into six other classic mixed drinks: Classic Margarita, White Negroni, Old Fashioned, Signature Manhattan, Signature Martini and its best-selling Espresso Martini. All varieties are available in 100ml. single-serve and 350ml. glass bottles.
The company is trying to slice off a share of the growing RTD cocktail set and create a “category-defining” premium option that can differentiate from brands like TipTop or On The Rocks. Spirit-based RTDs have continued to grow since 2019, according to IWSR, with the category expected to grow by 6% CAGR from 2023 to 2028.
Although Via Carota was founded four years ago, it took about a year and a half of recipe-testing hundreds of versions of the initial cocktails before they were “ready for prime time,” Leeds said.
“It is a process that requires patience. It’s a process that requires real investment to be able to build products that you’re proud of.”
Via Carota will be deploying the new capital to build out larger marketing and sales teams that will focus first on the brand’s home market in New York and then expand further into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic; it is already available in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., Leeds said.
In retail, the premium brand is targeting higher-end bottle shops and natural and specialty grocery stores while taking an “experiential” approach to on-premise through placement at events, weddings, the Lincoln Center, MoMA and in boutique hotels.
“We have our cocktails in rooms, but also during ‘shoulder shifts’ where the bartenders are off but the bars are still open,” he said.
The company is also investing in product development after the successful launch in May of its sparkling cocktails (Paloma, French 75, Negroni Sbagliato, White Negroni Sbagliato and Spritz). All are sold online as 10-packs of 200ml pop-top bottles.
Next up, Via Carota is expecting to launch a set of adult-non-alcoholic cocktails in the coming year.