Healthtech startup Sunnyside aims to help people be more ‘mindful’ about drinking alcohol. Here’s an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to raise $11.5 million.

• Sunnyside’s platform helps people plan and track their drinking habits.
• The startup just raised $11.5 million for its Series A funding round led by Motley Fool Ventures.
• Here’s the pitch deck the startup used to raise its funding round.

One startup wants to help consumers be more conscious of their alcohol consumption, and it recently received $11.5 million in venture capital funding.

Sunnyside, a startup, announced a Series A funding round led by Motley Fool Ventures. Will Ventures, Uncork Capital, Offline Ventures, Joyance Partners, Wisdom Ventures, Eudemian Ventures, Adjacent, and Scribble Ventures joined Will Ventures, Uncork Capital, Offline Ventures, Joyance Partners, Wisdom Ventures, Eudemian Ventures, Adjacent, and Scribble Ventures in the round, as did the law firm Cooley and Michael Lee, the founder of food tracking app MyFitnessPal.

Sunnyside’s founder, Nick Allen, founded the company in 2020 in San Francisco under the name Cutback Coach. Allen explained that it was created out of personal need after he and his wife began drinking more frequently while he was on sabbatical from his former Big Tech job and struggled to find a resource that could help them moderate their alcohol use without going completely sober.

Allen and his wife eventually devised a system in which they planned out their weekly drinking schedules ahead of time and held each other accountable. Sunnyside evolved from that concept.

“Many millions of people are drinking more than a healthy amount and feeling the impact on their short- and long-term wellness, but feel like their choices are going sober or doing nothing, so they do nothing,” he said in a recent interview with Business Insider.

Sunnyside’s mobile app promotes “mindful drinking” practices through weekly goal setting, text reminders, an online community, and one-on-one coaching. Users pay $12 per month or $99 per year to use the platform after a 15-day free trial.

Alcohol consumption is being reduced or eliminated entirely in Silicon Valley, thanks in part to new research indicating that even small amounts of alcohol can have negative health consequences. According to market research firm Mintel, nearly four in ten Americans either closely or occasionally follow a “sober curious” lifestyle.But that hasn’t stopped the venture capital industry from investing more than $1 billion in the alcohol industry by 2021, according to Crunchbase.

Finding a happy medium has been beneficial to Sunnyside’s business, according to Allen. With its new VC funding, the startup intends to improve its user experience with a slew of new hires, including new chief product and tech officer Steve Lloyd, formerly of fitness startup Strava, who are focused on bringing a “sober curious” mindset to the wellness community.

“We’re up against and are focused on changing the conversation around a false binary: that they are problem drinkers who need to go totally sober, and then everyone else,” he said. “There’s a massive consumer gap to be filled there.”