Become the confident founder your beverage brand needs to hit its next major milestone.
Join the only 3-Month Accelerator built for beverage and spirits founders already in market — get expert guidance, pressure test your pitch, gain real investor access, and develop a GTM plan you'll actually execute.
Driving business impact for beverage founders
60
Participating brands
50
Strategic partners & investors at Pitch Day
11
Countries represented outside the U.S.
100
Investment awarded to Pitch Day Winner
Do any of these sound familiar?
- You have traction, but you're not sure what's driving it or how to make sure it continues.
- You need capital but your pitch isn't where it needs to be and you don’t know who to ask to make it better.
- You're making stressful, high stakes decisions that define the next 3 years. But you’re doing it alone.
- You've sat across a distributor or buyer and felt like you were winging it. You left questioning yourself & your brand.
- You've spent money on the wrong thing and now you’re not sure what the next right decision is or if it will pay off.
The InvestBev Accelerator
For growth-stage beverage and spirits founders, already in market, generating $100K–$1M in revenue — who are ready to raise capital, build their GTM strategy, and take their brand to the next level.
Join the fall cohort
Unprecedented connections
Get trusted introductions to the brands, distributors, and decision-makers that move the adult beverage industry forward.
Actionable strategies
Receive actionable playbooks and 1:1 mentorship on everything from brand development and acceleration to building your board.
Access capital
At the end of the cohort, each brand has an opportunity to pitch leading investors for a $100,000 investment in cash and services.
Why InvestBev?
The Blueprint for Beverage Success.
You’ve got the vision; we’ve got the playbook. As former founders, operators, and industry leaders, the InvestBev team brings unmatched expertise and a proven track record of accelerating beverage brands from promising startups to category leaders. Our three-month accelerator is designed to help you get to market faster, avoid costly mistakes, and unlock your brand’s full potential.
The final test – with real industry leaders, $100K of capital on the table, and feedback that prepares you with confidence for the future.
Pitch day is the culmination of the program — a full day dedicated to presenting your brand to a room of investors and industry contacts who are there to evaluate and challenge you. One founder walks away with up to $100K in investment. Every founder walks away with direct feedback that typically takes years and many failed meetings to learn and refine. The format is specific to beverage and tech platforms and structured to be as close to a real investor meeting as possible so when the real thing comes, you’re prepared not just in theory, but also with feedback and refinement. You'll defend your GTM plan, your capital story, and your assumptions in front of people with your success at the forefront. What comes out the other side is a brand that is confident in its plan and future.
$100K
A capital and services opportunity is awarded to the pitch day winner – on top of portfolio membership and ongoing advisory access. All founders are invited to quarterly office hours with InvestBev senior partners, as well as portfolio events and industry meetups.
Pitch Day Intensive
On the final day of the program, cohorts come together to pitch in a real-time setting to investors, peers, and mentors. Pressure-testing GTM strategy, pitch strategy, and getting feedback.
Expert-Led Feedback
Every founder receives individual feedback on exactly how close or far they are from investment-ready – not just the winner. As a result, founders walk away with confidence and next steps for their brand's growth.
Real Industry Relationships
Pitch day isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. Investors and industry contacts are present, and the relationships built on pitch day follow founders long after the program is complete.
Ready to join the next cohort?
The Accelerator program is starting again soon – this is your sign to join.
How to Scale a Beverage Brand That's Already in Market
A free 1-hour working session with the InvestBev team. We'll walk through three areas where most founders at your stage are leaving value on the table: drink strategy, distribution, and how to position your brand for outside capital. Attend a webinar before you apply and mention WEBINAR in your application for priority review.
What you'll learn
Drink Strategy
How to define your drinking occasion, sharpen your category positioning, and build a strategy that holds up in front of buyers and investors.
Distribution Planning
How to identify which distributor relationships are actually moving the needle, and how to structure conversations that lead to real placement.
Funding Strategy
How to assess whether your business is investment-ready, and what to do in the next 90 days if it isn't.
Only 18 founders accepted into the August cohort.
Use this session to see if our program is the right fit before you apply.
Can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording.
Our transformative three-phase program—Assess, Build, Accelerate—is meticulously crafted by industry experts and strategic partners to meet your key business needs
Assess
Build
Accelerate
Delve into a comprehensive brand evaluation, deep consumer insights, and go-to-market readiness, setting robust benchmarks for success.
Develop powerful strategies including beverage pricing frameworks, direct-to-consumer channels, and robust business models, alongside mastering pitch
deck essentials.
Optimize your plan for rapid expansion with national marketing and distribution strategies, retail launch readiness, and essential investment fundamentals.
Frequently Asked Questions
The InvestBev Accelerator is a 3-month intensive program for growth-stage beverage founders — built around 6 working days of focused, expert-led sessions applied directly to your business.
It is not a course. It is not a lecture series. Every session is a working session: your GTM strategy, your pitch, your distribution challenges, your capital story — worked on with operators and investors who have built and funded beverage brands in the US market.
The program culminates in Pitch Day — a full day of presentations to a room of real investors and industry contacts, with $100K in investment on the table for the cohort winner.
InvestBev is the only organization that supports independent beverage brands across every stage of growth — from start to store to scale. The Accelerator is the program for brands ready to move fast.
The InvestBev Accelerator is built for growth-stage beverage and spirits founders who are already in market — generating $100K to $1M in annual revenue — and are ready to raise capital, strengthen their GTM strategy, or land the right distribution partners.
To be considered, your brand should:
- Have a product in market with demonstrated sales.
- Be operating in the adult beverage space — alcoholic, non-alcoholic, spirits, RTD, wine, beer, or functional beverages.
- Be founder-led or have the founding team actively involved.
- Be ready to be challenged — not looking for validation.
If your brand is pre-revenue or still in development, the timing may not be right yet. Reach out and we can point you in the right direction.
The program investment is $15,000, paid in full before the cohort begins. Payment plan options are available — ask us about this during your discovery call.
Included in the program fee:
- All working sessions — in-person and virtual
- Program materials, frameworks, and playbooks
- 1:1 mentorship hours with program experts
- Office hours throughout the 3-month cohort
- Meals and social events during in-person sessions in Chicago
- Pitch day — including investor introductions and individual feedback
- Access to the alumni network post-program
To put the investment in context: one bad hire, one wrong distribution deal, or one misaligned campaign can cost significantly more than $15K. The program is designed to help you avoid exactly those decisions.
Payment plan options may be available depending on your situation. The program investment is $15,000 — typically paid in full before the cohort begins.
If a payment plan would make participation possible for you, raise it during your discovery call and we will discuss what we can accommodate.
The 2026 cohort runs August through October:
- Session 1 — August: In person in Chicago
- Session 2 — September: Virtual
- Session 3 + Pitch Day — October: In person in Chicago
Specific session dates are confirmed with enrolled founders in advance. The cohort accepts a maximum of 18 brands — spots are limited, so apply early.
The process is straightforward and designed to take as little of your time as possible:
- Step 1: Fill out the eligibility form — takes about 60 seconds.
- Step 2: If you meet the criteria, you will be invited to a 20-minute discovery call.
- Step 3: Selected founders receive a formal invitation and complete enrollment.
- Optional Step 4: Join a webinar and our email list to learn more about the program before deciding it’s right for you.
Each cohort accepts a maximum of 18 brands.
Two of the three sessions take place in person in Chicago — Session 1 in August and Session 3 + Pitch Day in October. We strongly recommend attending both in person.
Session 2 in September is virtual.
The in-person experience — the working sessions, the community, the investor relationships built at pitch day — is where the most value is created.
We recognise that travel is not always possible and can accommodate virtual participation for the in-person sessions if genuinely necessary, but it is the exception rather than the norm.
No, not yet. The program is built for founders who are already in market, with a product in consumers’ hands and early sales to prove it.
The working sessions, the pitch day format, and the investor conversations are all designed around brands that have something real to stress-test. An idea-stage brand won’t get the same value from the experience — additionally, the cohort dynamic depends on everyone being at a growth stage.
If you’re pre-revenue, keep building. When you have your first sales and are ready to scale, come back. We’d love to work with you then.
In the meantime, we recommend signing up for our newsletter and a webinar to get familiar with the business side of the industry.
The cohort runs across 3 months on the calendar — but the in-person commitment is 6 working days, structured as three 2-day sessions.
- Session 1 (August): In person in Chicago
- Session 2 (September): Virtual
- Session 3 + Pitch Day (October): In person in Chicago
Between sessions, expect office hours, light preparation work, and peer community engagement — but the program is built to run alongside your business, not instead of it. You don’t pause to attend. You bring your real challenges and work on them live.
At the end of the program, every founder leaves with:
- A complete GTM plan — built around your actual business, stress-tested by operators and investors, and presented on pitch day.
- A capital story — your pitch, your KPIs, your investor narrative, refined through working sessions and live feedback.
- A decision-making framework — the operating instincts that don’t stop working when the program ends.
- Access to program playbooks — frameworks built from 100+ years of experience in the beverage industry.
- An investor and operator network — relationships built during the program and through pitch day that move with your business.
- Individual pitch day feedback — specific, direct, from the investors and industry contacts in the room.
The cohort winner also receives up to $100K in investment and joins the InvestBev portfolio.
Pitch Day is a full day dedicated to presenting your business to a curated room of beverage-focused investors and industry contacts. It takes place in Chicago in October as part of the final in-person session.
Every founder in the cohort pitches. The format is structured but specific to the beverage and spirits category — designed to be as close to a real investor meeting as possible, so that when the real thing comes, nothing catches you off guard.
After the presentations:
- Every founder receives individual feedback on where they stand — not just the winner.
- The cohort winner is awarded up to $100K in investment and joins the InvestBev portfolio.
- Investors and industry contacts who want to continue conversations do so directly — pitch day is the introduction, not the end.
Past pitch days have included representatives from Molson Coors, Beam Suntory, and beverage-focused investment funds.
The program ends, but your growth doesn’t.
- All graduates join the InvestBev alumni network — a community of founders who refer, support, and open doors for each other in new markets.
- The cohort winner joins the InvestBev portfolio and receives ongoing strategic guidance and investor introductions.
- Program experts remain accessible through continued office hours and community channels.
- We track outcomes: capital raised, distribution partnerships, rebrands, retail entry — because the program’s success is measured by what happens after it, not during it.
For most founders, the alumni network and the investor relationships built on pitch day are the longest-lasting returns on the program.
Unlike in an MBA program, every session is applied directly to your actual business.
We cover your distribution challenge, your capital story, and your GTM gaps. The people in the room have 100+ combined years of experience in the beverage industry, and they give specific, expert direction based on your challenges. This is the difference between the real world and a text book.
The format is fast and execution-focused. Three months on the calendar, six working days in the room.
If you want a credential, an MBA is your answer. If you want your beverage brand to scale — the InvestBev Accelerator is for you.
The program is led by operators and investors with 100+ years of combined experience in the adult beverage industry — people who have built, scaled, funded, and distributed beverage brands in the US market.
Past pitch days have included representatives from Molson Coors and Beam Suntory. Program experts cover GTM strategy, distribution, capital raising, brand positioning, and operational scaling.
Yes. International founders are welcome to apply and participate in the program.
The program’s expertise is rooted in the US market — the distribution landscape, the retail buyers, and the investor expectations that international brands need to understand before they enter. If you are building toward a US launch or trying to scale in the US, this program is directly relevant to you.
In-person sessions take place in Chicago. Travel and accommodation are the responsibility of each participant, but past cohorts have included founders from Europe, Latin America, Canada, and Asia Pacific.