COMPANY
In 2013, Whipstitch co-founder Mike Burgmaier met with Spindrift founder Bill Creelman. It was early days with Spindrift, and a planned two-hour meeting turned into six hours. Initially, Mike had thought that Spindrift could be a potential client in a year or two; after the meeting Mike could tell that Bill was something out of the ordinary. Mike often describes that meeting as one where he met one of the most thoughtful founders ever – and at that point he knew that all he had to do was get Bill in front of the right people and explain what he saw – and they would as well.
WHIPSTITCH FIT
Having met countless founders in the consumer space over twenty years, the Whipstitch Team knows when they come across someone extraordinary. The Whipstitch Team worked with Spindrift over the next several years – talking strategy and helping identify and introduce the investors that would help Bill mold Spindrift into a $200 million+ beverage powerhouse.
RESULT
The Whipstitch Team closed an early round with Spindrift, bringing in talented angel investors, Prolog Ventures and KarpReilly. Eventually, the Whipstitch Team structured a multi-tranche investment in to Spindrift with CPG powerhouse VMG Partners. At the initial meeting between Creelman and Burgmaier, Spindrift’s seltzer product was in a glass bottle, had to be constantly refrigerated and represented a small single digit percentage of overall company revenue. But we saw the vision and the leadership and helped craft the investment team around Bill to help make it happen.
