WineFi’s win at the SeedLegals Awards 2025 – and why their business has legs

Investing in fine wine has always carried a reputation: expensive, elitist and tightly controlled by merchants. 

Building a diversified portfolio typically costs upwards of £50k, leaving younger investors priced out – and without professional management, transparency drops, confusion rises and scams can creep in.

So WineFi is making the toast to a new era of investment – one that’s uncorked with professionalism and grounded in expertise.

Meet CEO Callum Woodcock and Ops Director Ollie Thorpe, who are combining Callum’s background in traditional asset management (through the likes of Fidelity and JP Morgan) and Ollie’s family roots in the wine trade, to make investing in wine more accessible and cost-effective for everyone that wants a taste of the industry. 

A new vintage for wine investment

WineFi’s big idea? Apply fintech infrastructure to modernise wine investment, with a syndicate-based model for fine wine that opens the cellar door at just £3000. With this approach, multiple investors can co-own a curated portfolio that’s managed from sourcing to scaling.

And this isn’t just guesswork. WineFi leans on institutional-grade analysis that pulls from over 18 million data points – identifying the bottles most likely to increase in value as well as the precise prices they’re worth buying at.

Where WineFi outsmarts the market

Don’t mistake WineFi for wine merchants – they’re passionate about wine, yes, but they also want to ‘balance the bouquet’ as professional asset managers with a data-driven, finance-first approach. 

Together they form a melting pot of expertise in investment banking, equity trading, data science, nuclear physics – and the result of this is a high-end wine investment system that simply didn’t exist before. 

Their model wrestles longstanding industry problems by: 

• Maintaining the UK capital gains tax exemption.
• Avoiding high costs of traditional wine.
• Offering professional asset management and market analysis.
• Addressing the disconnect between merchant offer prices and accurate transaction values.

WineFi’s platform is democratising wine investment by equipping prospects with the knowledge they need to make informed purchasing decisions, as well as offering objective references to build trust in a space that’s currently unregulated. 

Turning investors (and connoisseurs) into stakeholders

Not everyone who loves wine can justify dropping £10k on bottles to drink – but WineFi detects the sweet spot at which a budding Bordeaux enthusiast can invest the same amount and see a return. 

Callum and Ollie are reframing wine not just as something to drink, but as an asset class that draws in both seasoned investors and the next generation of ‘HENRYs’ (High Earners Not Rich Yet – think lawyers, bankers and entrepreneurs in their 30s – 40s). 

They openly reject the tired cliche of “if it doesn’t go up, you can always drink it” and are instead targeting investors who will be interested in helping you with ROI – not just red wine romance.

WineFi’s angle can be used to expand the market to younger demographics by using the thrill of investment as a gateway into learning about fine wine producers, labels and regions, which in turn also benefits the entire wine trade ecosystem.

SeedLegals as the sommelier of WineFi’s startup journey

Referred through the London founder ecosystem and recommended by a friend with a positive SeedLegals experience, Callum and Ollie came in cold, admitting they were unsure what SEIS even was at the beginning of their journey. 

SeedLegals guided them through SEIS/EIS setup, SeedFASTs, ASA agreements and the fundraising process. That support gave WineFi the confidence (and the tools) to raise their first £177k pre-seed round. More importantly, it let them prove an exciting new hypothesis that people would invest in wine, even without drinking rights.

Pre-seed pour then full-bodied growth

Following that first proof-point, WineFi were able to begin challenging entrenched beliefs among angel investors that wine investment only made sense for drinking. 

With a seed round of £477k – also closed via SeedLegals – they were well-capitalised, which signalled disciplined growth and gave them room to scale. Their credibility then skyrocketed when Coterie, one of the most prestigious fine wine holding companies, joined as a strategic partner – with their CEO now sitting on the WineFi board. 

When we interviewed them after the 2025 Awards, WineFi described themselves as being in the ‘adolescent’ phase – they had a proven product, a growing team and performance that outpaced the wider market.

After closing a £1.5 million round in May 2025, they were focused on scaling and embedding in wealth management platforms – with some great early inbound interest from boutique wealth managers and multi-family offices that manage hundreds of millions… far earlier than Callum and Ollie had pencilled into their roadmap. 

Social Sensation… and Startup of the Year?

Few startups can say they’ve added a refreshing and innovative twist to reshape a centuries-old industry, built a loyal investor base and created a powerful online presence… all before their second birthday. But WineFi can. 

And now, if WineFi’s rapid growth wasn’t impressive enough on its own, their impact has been recognised publicly with the well-deserved ‘Startup of the Year’ trophy at the SeedLegals Awards 2025. 

Entered under the social sensation category and achieving finalist status due to their standout LinkedIn strategy, Callum and Ollie were excited for the potential of winning an award but mostly drawn to the event for the community feeling and opportunities to meet new people.

Expecting to simply enjoy a night with the startup community, the two were blown away by the announcement that they would be walking home with the SeedLegals Startup of the Year title.

Raising a glass to what’s next

Winning an award is one thing. Turning that recognition into rocket fuel for the next stage is another. So when we asked Callum what the latest funding actually enables, he described to us the need to be everywhere at once:

Since the SeedLegals Awards 2025, WineFi has gained hundreds of new investors and launched six new syndicates. They’ve also welcomed a Head of Investment to their team (Matthew Small). 

And with some exciting announcements in the works, they’re popping the cork and raising a glass to an ambitious, full-bodied future in fundraising. 

Ready to make your impact?

We’ve helped thousands of startups raise over £2B in funding, simplify their legals and free up resources to focus on what matters. Want to see how we can help you grow? Book a demo with our team and let’s make it happen.