When an East Coast startup called Gopuff paid $350 million for BevMo in November 2020, it wasn't immediately clear what a tech company planned to do with California's biggest liquor chain.
Founded in Philadelphia by two college friends in 2013 and backed by more than $1 billion in venture capital, Gopuff delivered beer, snacks and other corner-store sundries, putting it in competition with the likes of UberEats, DoorDash and Drizly, companies that rely on software and contract labor to avoid owning physical assets. What did Gopuff want with a collection of more than 100 bricks-and-mortar bottle shops?
Two years later, Gopuff has built its California business around those physical locations — and their all-important liquor licenses — says co-founder and co-Chief Executive Rafael Ilishayev, using them as fulfillment centers for local deliveries. With a firm beachhead in California, Gopuff has expanded to 42 states, the United Kingdom and France, and has more than 13,000 employees, in addition to gig drivers.
