London-based fintech WineFi announced raising £1.5 million (about $2 million) in a Seed funding round led by British fine wine group Coterie Holdings, with participation from SFC Capital, Founders Capital, and a syndicate of angel investors.
WineFi, founded by former Fidelity International and J.P. Morgan asset managers Oliver Thorpe and Callum Woodcock, operates a data-driven platform that gives high-net-worth individuals, family offices, and funds structured access to fine wine investments.
The company said the funding will be used to enhance its analytics tools and expand its offering of diversified, expertly curated wine portfolios.
Traditional wine investment often lacks transparency and standardized data, WineFi said.
Its platform addresses these issues by enabling co-investment in baskets of wines with minimum commitments starting at £3,000, allowing a broader range of investors to participate in the alternative asset class amid wider market volatility.
In a strategic move to improve liquidity and transparency, WineFi has partnered with digital asset provider Lympid to fractionalize fine wine assets on a blockchain-enabled platform.
The collaboration will enable clients to buy and sell wine shares more efficiently, WineFi added.
Coterie Holdings, which has extensive experience in the fine wine sector, took a strategic stake in WineFi and will nominate its chief executive officer, Michael Saunders, to the startup’s board.
Saunders, with over 40 years of industry expertise, said the partnership combines “deep wine expertise with modern financial tools to make this historically compelling asset class more accessible to sophisticated investors.”
Thorpe and Woodcock said the new capital will accelerate product development, including enhanced valuation models and real-time market data feeds.
They aim to tap into growing demand for alternative investments and position WineFi as the gateway between traditional wine markets and institutional-grade financial infrastructure.
The investment follows a surge of interest in asset classes outside equities and bonds, as investors seek new avenues for portfolio diversification. WineFi joins a growing cohort of fintech firms leveraging technology and data to democratize access to luxury asset markets.