Casey Neistat, who has already flexed his entrepreneurial muscles after rising to renown as a content creator, is now trying on an investor hat.
According to Techcrunch, Neistat — who counts 11.8 million YouTube subscribers — is one of the angel investors in Haus, which just raised $4.5 million in a seed round. Haus is a direct-to-consumer aperatif startup that vends a $35 citrus- and flower-flavored beverage touting a lower alcohol content (15%) than typical hard liquors (35% to 45%). As part of the round, Haus is also introducing a membership program comprising monthly shipments — given that it’s legal to ship alcohol directly to consumers if the product is made primarily of grapes and is under 24% alcohol, per Techcrunch.
Neistat isn’t the only angel investor to participate in Haus’ seed round. (Angel investors are typically wealthy figures — often in an entrepreneur’s friend or family circle — that invests early on in the lifes of a startup in exchange for equity). Haus was founded by the married entrepreneurial duo Helena Price Hambrecht and Woody Hambrecht.
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Other angels included former Campari chairman and CEO Gerry Ruvo, Away co-founder Jen Rubio, Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra, and Russell Simmons, according to Techcrunch. Other investors include Combine, Haystack Ventures, Homebrew, Shrug Capital, Resolute Venture Partners, Coatue Management, Dream Machine, and Work Life Ventures.
Neistat’s entrepreneurial journey to date has seen highs and lows. After launching a buzzy social video app called Beme in July 2015, CNN acquired the company in Nov. 2016 for a reported $25 million — with the intentions of turning it into a media brand. In Jan. 2018, however, Neistat departed Beme, and it ceased to exist as a standalone company after being absorbed into the larger CNN entity. Neistat’s next act is 368 — a physical space in New York chock full of resources for video creators.
