Changing Wine Through Tech

When Michael Baum, CEO and Founder of Vivant, became the first American owner of a Burgundy vineyard, Château de Pommard, the technology entrepreneur began applying his innovative ideas to the age-old domain of wines, leading to the creation of online platform Vivant.

- June Lee

Michael Baum is curious by nature, and a creator of successful start-ups. Having founded six different technology companies over the years, he’s more recently been focused on starting and running Founder.org, including supporting the 128 companies started with university students around the world, Rootstock Music, and Vivant. That’s on top of his investment in Château de Pommard in Burgundy in 2014, which he has since converted to biodynamic viticulture, a topic in which he is now a passionate advocate.

“The results (of biodynamic conversion) went beyond our expectations, and our wines are now more aromatic, flavourful, and energetic than ever. We have clients all over the world in 92 different countries. To share our story with them meant we had to physically travel, creating a carbon footprint and going against our very belief in caring for our planet. So to scale, we challenged ourselves to create the magic of greeting people at the chateau, but online,” Baum explains.

“Soon, we realised this was an opportunity to help other responsible winemakers tell their story too and connect with potential clients around the world. This is something most of these smaller producers would never have the chance to do otherwise. We brought together an international team of wine educators, product designers, software engineers, and media producers to create a new platform where people can meet responsible winemakers and taste their wines alongside expert wine advisors, no matter where they are.”