In a saturated beverage market, craft-brewed beverage company Kove wants to expand—but they needed a better way to manage and secure confidential assets shared with potential investors. Read why the team adopted Dropbox DocSend to address that need, and how the platform offers them insights into what resonates with investors.
Resultados clave
Improved ability to securely share intellectual property
Gained insight into investor sentiment
Aspectos generales
Kove launched its award-winning beverage company in early 2023 and targets the active outdoor lifestyle market with cocktail-inspired ready-to-drink botanical infusions. Kove has a strong foothold in grocery and retail beverage stores, and they’re looking to expand their market share via their first round of institutional capital.
Desafío
Sharing assets with the right people—and only the right people
La misión de Kove es simple: ser el próximo caso de éxito de bebidas de San Diego. Los fundadores de la empresa, Alex Montelbano y Chris Clark, tienen la experiencia necesaria para impulsar la marca, pero la competencia en el mercado de bebidas es dura. Kove necesita tener un buen capital para enfrentarse a las marcas globales por un espacio en las góndolas.
Kove used Dropbox for storage across their entire organization—everything from vendor forms to legal documents had its place. But sharing pitch decks with investors created a unique set of challenges. Montelbano and Clark are engaged in hundreds of conversations at any given time, and because the PDF files of their decks were so easily shareable, information could easily fall into the wrong hands.
Kove’s competitors raise capital from the same pool of investors, so access to Kove’s financial projections or industry insights would diminish the company’s competitive advantage. Kove needed a way to share these pitch decks that would protect their intellectual property (IP).
We want to protect every advantage we have. If our asset gets into a competitors’ deck, now they have that same advantage.
Solución
Secure sharing, at the speed of business
Clark ha sido un “gran fanático” de Dropbox por años, por lo que él y Montelbano usaron la plataforma para organizar el negocio de Kove desde el principio. Se reunió con el equipo de Dropbox en Natural Products Expo West y les explicó las dificultades que tenía para proteger su IP. Dropbox le sugirió probar las salas de datos virtuales (VDR) de DocSend.
The beverage industry is competitive, and the bulk of Kove’s IP involves industry insights that take a lot of time and effort to compile. Say they’re looking at what venture capital has invested into competitors' brands. They gather that data, compile it, and put it into a spreadsheet so they can demonstrate where Kove fits into the matrix of investment portfolios of large investor networks. “If we just put that information back out there, then our competitors are going to grab it and they're going to use it,” Clark says. “That's something we try to keep close to our chest.”
A virtual data room offered Kove a way to safeguard and secure financial statements and industry-related IP while allowing the appropriate parties to access those documents. They were also pleased to find that DocSend also allows them to track when someone opens the files. “It just kind of blew our minds. We were like, wow, that's really valuable information,” Clark says.
Compared to the insecure method of sending pitch decks via PDFs, DocSend VDR limits who can access a file to those with an approved email. The solution also provides real-time alerts via push notifications and emails so Kove can see a viewer’s engagement with a given document.
This feature addresses another of Kove’s issues: investors saying they had read the package, yet seeming unfamiliar with the business during initial meetings. With DocSend, “we could prepare for those conversations with much more ammunition,” Clark says.
They considered another solution, but DocSend’s price and ease of implementation made it an easy choice. “It was a no-brainer,” Clark says. They established a DocSend instance in less than 48 hours.
DocSend is out-of-the-box ready, moving at the pace of business today: Plug it in and start moving your assets in a secure way.
Resultado
Recipient insight becomes a new advantage
By using DocSend VDR, Kove has created a funnel for investor conversations. When speaking to potential investors, Montelbano and Clark know exactly who has looked through their deck, and how much time they spent on each slide. That intel allows them to better tailor their pitch to the individual investor.
“Different stakeholders have different areas of interest,” Clark says. “We're able to take that data and maybe move the slides to optimize their view of the places we want them to see. Or if investors keep having questions and we know their questions are actually answered in the deck, but they never read that slide, that data's super valuable for us. Then we can reposition and retarget them in a new way.”
Al hablar por teléfono con un posible inversionista, el equipo puede seguir la conversación mientras abren la plataforma y ven dónde están pasando el tiempo. Incluso, pueden redireccionar conversaciones en tiempo real según esa información.
“Insights are great, but the real-time insights can be super valuable and are definitely the most important piece to us,” Clark says.
The investment cycle is long, and it’s made even longer when the economic outlook is uncertain. Being able to easily update investor representation is valuable during this process, and with every update, Clark and Montelbano can watch investors tracking their progress. And DocSend gives the Kove team confidence that they’re sharing documents securely.
“If you want to feel like your confidential assets are under your control, I would recommend DocSend,” Clark says.
The proof is in Kove’s success: Despite it being a challenging year to raise capital, Kove has announced its lead investor, with more expected to follow. Kove’s expansion plans include partnerships with San Diego stadiums, which will require heavy contract review. They will use DocSend VDR assets during that process, too. It’s instrumental in helping Kove find the right partners and carve space for their brand in a saturated market.
The insights are the most important. They help us prepare for conversations in an educated way, knowing who we’re talking to and what they’re interested in.
