Stone winds down its angel fund True Craft

USA | Long time no hear from Stone’s “True Craft” investment fund. USD 100 million were put into its piggy bank in 2016 to create an alternative source of investment for craft breweries who did not want to sell to a Big Brewer. But the fund never clinched any deals and was recently scrapped.

In an interview with the journalist Peter Rowe on pacificsandiego.com on 28 June 2019, Stone officially confirmed that True Craft is dead, having never made any investments into small breweries at all.

Back when the fund was launched, the fund’s co-founder Greg Koch was quoted as saying: “Some people start companies to sell out. Some start companies because they are compelled to follow their passion. True Craft is for the latter. Craft beer needs an alternative model to the one that requires founders to sell their company in its entirety. In a world in which there are constant forces toward homogenisation and fitting in, I specifically want to foster a world of uniqueness, depth and character.”

What is bugging us: Did no breweries want to take up True Craft on its offer?  Or was True Craft unable to match offers from private equity or larger companies?

Both explanations seem unlikely. Because in the meantime all kinds of smallish craft brewers have formed so-called “partnerships”, whereby one takes over the other to allow for an elegant noncontroversial exit.

Mr Rowe wonders if the closure of True Craft, and the presumed reclamation of its USD 100 million fund, might have more to do with Stone’s current woes. The brewer from San Diego has had to sell its Berlin venture to BrewDog and put plans on hold for a large world bistro at its brewery in Richmond, Virginia.

“We’ll likely never know, as Stone isn’t exactly going to be bringing up True Craft as a talking point in the future. It will remain an interesting case of what [it] could have been for the craft beer industry”, Mr Rowe concludes.