🥃 Emma Watson’s Gin Company Renais Raises $6.2 Million Dollars In New Funding To Expand

In today’s newsletter we discuss Emma Watson’s gin company Renais raises $6.2 million dollars in new funding to expand, Meta is courting content creators, OpenAI launched their 1st AI Agent called Operator, Daniel Ek’s body scanning startup Neko Health is worth $1.6 billion dollars, Jeff Bezos gives $100 million dollars to Eva Longoria and Bill McRaven, and Hiroto Ogiwara lands the first ever 2340 backside mute grab in the X Games.

Scroll on!

WHAT WE’RE READING

🥃 Emma Watson’s Gin Company Renais Raises $6.2 Million Dollars In New Funding To Expand

Forbes

Emma Watson, of Harry Potter fame, has recently raised $6.2 million dollars in funding for she and her brother Alex’s gin brand named Renais from InvestBev, “a growth-oriented private equity firm that seeks to invest in adult beverage brands, and technology” according to their website.

With this new funding round Renais has plans to “expand into France, Spain, Dubai and Canada while deepening its footprint in the United States.”

The spirits industry flows through the Watson’s blood, with both Emma and Alex being the children of Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, who have owned a vineyard named Domaine Watson in France for the last 30 years.

🏥 Business

The CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, is now the co-founder of a second unicorn. His body scanning startup, Neko Health, reached unicorn status after raising $260 million dollars.

Body scanning has become a big business, with celebrities like Kim Kardashian singing the praises of rival company Prenuvo’s full body MRI scanner. We even did a video on Kim Kardashian getting a full body scan last year.

Neko Health’s scanning focuses on preventative healthcare treatment, and they have a waitlist of 100,000 people, so they must be doing something right.

🎬 Courting Content Creators

The recent TikTok drama and politics has unleashed a sort of arms race among social media companies to court content creators and bring them to their platforms. Meta is looking to grow their Instagram’s short-form videos, and is paying content creators to add more content to their platform.

📞 AI

OpenAI has released to the masses their new AI Agent offering called Operator, which allows people to automate tasks like making a restaurant reservation, vacation planning, fill out forms, and order groceries (I’m going to try that!). Operator has been in Beta, with some of my company’s (day job) corporate clients raving about it, but sadly my OpenAI account only recently received this new feature).

If you have an OpenAI Pro Account you can check out Operator at Operator.ChatGPT.com

💸 Philanthropy

While some Billionaires are out there spending their money to acquire social media companies, and another quote-on-quote “Billionaire” his building their own social networks, Jeff Bezos is out there giving away $100 million dollars to actress/businesswoman/soccer team owner Eva Longoria and retired Navy admiral and former chancellor of the University of Texas System Bill McRaven so they can fund their favorite charities.

They’ll each receive $50 million dollars, with Eva Longoria using the money to fund her Eva Longoria Foundation, which she started in 2021 “to help Latinas build better futures for themselves and their families through education and entrepreneurship” according to the foundation’s website.

Bill McRaven wants to use the money for “educating the children of deceased veterans, particularly in the special operations community; the mental health and brain performance of veterans; and helping to develop future military leaders through education” according to an article on CNN.

🏂 Sports

For the first time in the history of the X Games, a 19-year old contestant named Hiroto Ogiwara, has landed the first ever 2340, which is a backside six-and-a-half-revolution mute grab trick that even Shaun White has never landed.

Watch the video here.

Was this email forwarded to you? Did you not hate it?

Then consider subscribing to our quick hits irl Media NEWSLETTER. The only newsletter that brings you the business behind the news, with a healthy dose of sarcasm – all delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in an easily digestible 5-minute read.

irl Media NEWSLETTER is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.