Zac Brandenberg - DRINKS CEO, Direct to Consumer Innovator

Zac Brandenberg is the co-founder and CEO of Drinks Holdings, Inc. (www.drinks.com). DRINKS powers digital commerce for the $250 billion US alcohol market. The company enables alcohol ecommerce for leading retailers, online marketplaces, and alcohol companies, eliminating a century of red tape with simple-to-use enterprise-grade technology. Via the DRINKS App for Shopify, DRINKS exclusively provides Shopify merchants of all sizes with an embedded, real-time alcohol tax and regulatory solution. The patented DRINKS PAIR platform leverages AI, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision to provide personalized shopping experiences and data-driven insights. Electriq, DRINKS’ Shopify Plus Certified professional services team, extends the company’s unparalleled beverage alcohol and ecommerce experience to create best-in-class customer journeys. DRINKS was named a Top Place to Work by Built In LA for five years, one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes for two consecutive years, and Most Innovative Retail Model by Modern Retail in 2020.

Zac is a serial entrepreneur focused on accelerating digital disruption in verticals lacking innovative technology solutions. In early 2003, while running a boutique media agency, Zac launched an ecommerce business focused on patriotism and Americana and secured exclusive rights to reprint the “Iraqi Most Wanted” playing cards developed by the US Military. In what was one of the fastest product launches on the Internet, the business sold millions of decks of cards entirely driven by online marketing and was featured nationally. Behind the scenes, the company quickly scaled up infrastructure with its own custom ecommerce software to manage thousands of orders an hour. Simultaneously, Zac established relationships with hundreds of Internet media publishers demanding to advertise the hottest product on the Internet. 

This rapid success illuminated an opportunity in the nascent MarTech industry – today valued around $100 billion globally – to develop a trusted platform for digital ad tracking and a marketplace to connect advertisers with media publishers. Later that year, Zac founded Hydra, a performance-based, multichannel digital ad platform that reached annual revenues in excess of $100 million in less than 5 years and ranked in the Top 10 of the INC 500 as early as 2007. Hydra delivered upwards of 25 million digital actions a year, generating more than $3B of sales, for many of the largest and best-known consumer product and service companies and was acquired in 2010 by Adknowledge, the largest privately held digital marketplace.

Zac has also been an active investor and Board member in several consumer goods and technology-focused businesses, including Dogswell (acquired by TSG Consumer Partners) and Teleparent (acquired by Edline, LLC/Providence Equity).

Zac received a dual B.A. in Economics-Accounting and Government from Claremont McKenna College and lives in Austin, TX with his family.