How it started‍

Liquify was co-founded in British Columbia by industry expert Rod Phillips, who saw first-hand how much friction sat between liquor agents, suppliers, and the retailers and restaurants they serve. Ordering, replenishment, pricing, and paperwork were slow, manual, and costly on both sides of the transaction.

Built specifically for the realities of the BC liquor market, Liquify set out to take the complexity out of every step — from product discovery to final sale — so the people in the industry could focus on growing their businesses rather than filling out forms. Fifteen years later, the platform has become a fixture in BC's beverage-alcohol distribution.

What they're building

Liquify is a private, account-based B2B marketplace built for the BC liquor industry's unique needs, connecting two sides of the market in one place:

For retailers & restauranteurs, the platform makes product discovery and replenishment ordering faster, clearer, and more profitable — letting buyers shop the entire market (import, domestic, pre-orders, current and future sale pricing), build custom order templates, track every order, and quickly pull up Doc 60s, invoices, and transaction details. Buyers join free.

For agents & suppliers, Liquify fast-tracks exposure, customer acquisition, order flow, and payments. Suppliers can get their full portfolio in front of thousands of licensees within minutes instead of days, automate reporting and analytics, and track orders from dispatch to fulfilment through both the LDB and Direct Delivery. Tiered plans (Artisan, Professional, and Enterprise) scale from small producers to large-scale operations, with the platform reporting strong returns on investment for supplier partners.

The scale of the network underlines the traction: the marketplace now spans 470+ sales reps, 3,000+ licensees, and 40,000+ products, with brand partners including Ace Beverage Group, Big Rock Brewery, Arterra Wines Canada, and Athletic Brewing Co. Sales managers across the province have credited the platform with turning store visits into confirmed orders on the spot.

Where APEX comes in

For Liquify, the decision to work with APEX came down to people. With plenty of organizations to choose from, the team focused less on what advisors could offer on paper and more on who they were — spending real time getting to know them before committing.

"There are a lot of organizations out there... Really, it was about the people. We spent a lot of time getting a good sense of who they were as people, more than just what they could bring to the table."

That relationship has paid off in the form of outside perspective — something that's especially valuable in a niche, highly regulated market where it's easy to operate on long-held assumptions.

"One of the toughest things about being an entrepreneur is you really don't know what you don't know."

By connecting Liquify with experienced advisors from beyond the BC liquor trade, APEX has helped the team challenge those assumptions, prompting new conversations with suppliers and new ways to build on what Liquify has already created.

"A key point of the advisors has been to open our eyes up to opportunities that may exist within our current business that we just hadn't seen."

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