American liquor retail technology specialist Scotch raises a glass to $20 million Series A funding round
Scotch, an all in one operating system for liquor retailers, has raised a $20 million Series A, led by VMG Partners, with participation from First Round Capital, Lerer Hippeau, and Toba Capital.
In a LinkedIn post, Jake Bolling, Founder and CEO at Scotch, said: “In 2024, we set out to fix something that's been broken for 30 years: the technology running America's 40,000+ independent liquor stores. Most of those stores operate on PoS software built before the iPhone. Before Amazon was founded. In some cases, before the store owners themselves were born.”
He added: “Since launching our first store ten months ago, we've crossed $1 billion in annualised gross payment volume. That number tells us two things: (1) The problem is real, and (2) operators are ready to move. Store owners are quite literally blowing up systems they've used for two decades to partner with Scotch. While these milestones are fun to celebrate, they're far from what we're focused on. We think about the calls from owners and GMs who used to spend Monday mornings buried in distributor invoices, line by line, for hours. Now they spend that time looking at margins, planning reorders, and growing their store. That's what we built this for.”
Bolling concluded: “Our CTO, Dan Chen, spent more than a decade in liquor tech, including CTO at Drizly before its acquisition by Uber. Kevin Hodges and I built Skupos in convenience retail. We didn't stumble into this category. We picked it on purpose, and we built the team to win it. This round lets us keep building faster and with more intention. More automation. More time returned to the amazing people running these stores. Independent liquor retail is an $80 billion market that technology has ignored for a generation. Tens of thousands of stores will be getting the technology they deserve. We're just getting started.”
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
PoS solutions will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
