How we helped Canned Wine Company scale to become a nationally recognised sustainable drinks brand.
Canned Wine Company are market leaders in canned wines. Launched in 2019 by Simon Rollings and Ben Franks, they curate a range of wines sourced from across Europe, and aim to deliver perfectly portioned drinks in cans that are infinitely recyclable. Available at Waitrose, on Ocado, and even on British Airways, Canned Wine Company are a case study in the potential of sustainable consumable brands.
"We started in 2019 with the mission of how do you make great wine more accessible, and basically have a great glass of wine without having to open a whole bottle. We're now a B Corp, and we also work with Positive Luxury to build and promote a more sustainable approach to winemaking and the way in which you can enjoy wine."
Ben Franks & Simon Rollings
Co-Founders of Canned Wine Company
Terms. Investments. Acquisitions.
We have Canned Wine Company’s back.
Our relationship with Canned Wine Company began in 2020, and we have been supporting them as a growth partner ever since.
Our commercial solicitors began working with Canned Wine when the company was still in its very early stages, and have had their back as they developed terms of business, leased property, bought other businesses, and generally scaled to where they are today.
"We've had a fantastic relationship with RWK Goodman right from the very start. James and Scott have been really supportive through both advisory and also the legal work. And we've continued to work more closely with them as we've scaled and more and more legal challenges or advice has been required as we've scaled."
Ben Franks
Co-Founder, Canned Wine Company
Investments. Secured.
Most recently our venture capital specialists helped Canned Wine Company secure a six-figure investment for their next stage of growth from a number of angel investors.
Our experts worked to prepare the investment paperwork as well as negotiate directly with the investors on Canned Wine Company’s behalf, advising Simon and Ben throughout the process to help translate legal concepts and comment on what the market norms are so they could ensure that terms were reasonable and that the business was well protected.
Once investments were secured and paperwork agreed, our team has also worked to ensure the completion process is as smooth as possible, building in an ability for some investors to provide their funds over the weeks following completion; reducing the need for additional paperwork and maximising the investments the company could secure.
By their side through growth. And the challenges that come with it.
Our commercial team have a range of expertise outside of investments too, which has been invaluable to Canned Wine Company. With the company’s increasing scale, the Canned Wine team found themselves doing business with much larger entities; leaning on our commercial contract experts to help professionalise the company’s terms of business and safeguard the company’s interests.
Simon and Ben, and their team, have been brilliant at leveraging their industry knowledge (as well as a high-quality product) to get the attention of large brands like Waitrose and British Airways, helping the company to punch above its weight and lay the groundwork for longevity. When supporting them we’ve been conscious that they’ve therefore needed the right advice to ensure they have not just growth, but grounded and sustainable growth.
This approach to growth has led to fantastic opportunities like the purchase of the Copper Crew brand, where our M&A solicitors helped them secure not just the marketing power of the brand and relevant stock, but also handled the formalities by dealing with the necessary paperwork and registrations for a change of ownership of the related trademarks.
"The process of going through an acquisition with RWK Goodman was pretty smooth... it was a confident acquisition of a competitive brand that put us in a really good space."
Ben Franks
Co-Founder, Canned Wine Company
However, no scale up journey is typical and any expanding company has its growing pains. As such, our team have leveraged a full range of legal services for businesses from across our firm, including our dispute resolution solicitors (when things haven’t gone quite to plan), or our real estate solicitors when they’ve needed to expand beyond their current premises.
"We are aware of the wide expertise in the firm. And, unfortunately, we had an incident where we sought legal advice to to sue a production company that was fraudulent and wasted a lot of our wine. Ultimately, we didn't go ahead with that. But the advice that out of RWK Goodman gave us was it was really useful and helped us navigate that quite challenging moment in our business."
Simon Rollings
Co-Founder, Canned Wine Company
The future for RWK Goodman and Canned Wine Company.
The future looks bright for Canned Wine Company, as they continue to expand further into the market.
Simon of Canned Wine Company says, “We’re looking forward to working with RWK Goodman on more potential M&A activity as we scale the business and grow the business through extra funding of brands, and also just more commercial contracts – more large scale negotiations where they can support us with our bigger clients.“
"We've been supporting Canned Wine Company since the very early stages, right through their growth journey. We've been on hand to help right from early investments through to more substantial sums. When they've looked at property leases, we've been on hand with that. When they've had difficult times and disputes, we've been there to support them. That's exactly the kind of model we like. We like to get involved at early stages and really be with that client through all stages of their growth."
Scott Preece
Partner
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