But beyond this heart-warming entrepreneurial success story helping keep truckers and gamers (and many others) awake through their long hours are threads for other venture investors.
First, attention is now on Coca-Cola-backed energy drinks peer Monster. In August 2014, Coca-Cola paid $2.15bn for a 16.7% stake in Monster Beverage as a pipe deal – a public investment in a public equity – and now owns 19%.
Coca-Cola also transferred ownership of its then energy business, drinks like Full Throttle, Burn and Power Play, to Monster, while Monster transferred its non-energy business, such as Hansen’s Natural Sodas, Peace Tea and Hubert’s Lemonade, to Coca-Cola.
The relationship ran into friction when Coca-Cola later launched a new energy drink – settled after arbitration last summer – but the ability to use corporate venturing strategies to invest in and work with listed companies can be successful both financially and strategically, as others, such as China-based games group Tencent and Denmark-based healthcare company Novo have shown.
Monster’s valued has broadly tripled to more than $35bn since the 2014 agreement with Coke.
It also underscores the value of inside information. Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola chairman and CEO, said at the time of its 2014 deal that Monster had been an important part of Coke’s global system since 2008, “so we have experienced first-hand Monster’s performance-driven and entrepreneurial culture, proven success in building and extending the Monster brand and their strong product innovation pipeline”.
Similarly, PepsiCo already distributes Rockstar to provide the data on its performance and operations. In a data-driven world, technology companies’ corporate venturing units, such as Amazon, Alphabet and Tencent and Alibaba, are applying the insights gained from their chokehold on the information flows to see and strike deals in a way investment banks used to do using the edge in financial services.
But, as ever in dealmaking, caveat emptor.
