US-based canned water brand Liquid Death has completed a $75m series C round featuring live event organiser Live Nation Entertainment, TechCrunch reported today, as the marketing-savvy company increased its total funding to $125m.
Startup incubator and venture capital firm Science led the round, which included PowerPlant Partners, Access Capital and Nomad Ventures.
The company had already raised $15m in series C funding in May 2021 from Live Nation as well as private investors Wiz Khalifa, Tony Hawk, Machine Gun Kelly, Steve Aoki, Michael Dubin and Kelly Campbell.
Founded in 2017, Liquid Death provides mountain water sourced from the Austrian Alps and packaged in recyclable aluminium cans, which it argues is more sustainable than plastic.
Mike Cessario, chief executive of Liquid Death, came from a content creation background, having previously been a copywriter at marketing and advertising firms including Doner, VaynerMedia and Fullscreen Media before co-founding the company.
Liquid Death is known for its creative advertising and catchy slogans, such as ‘death to plastic’ and ‘murder your thirst’. It also ran alternative marketing campaigns, providing plant-based ‘human meat’ through the Vegan Cannibal Steakhouse and offering branded tattoos to customers late last year.
The company’s products are available in more than 29,000 commercial facilities across the United States including Whole Foods, Target, Safeway and 7-Eleven, Cessario told TechCrunch. He revealed the company has booked almost $45m in revenue in 2021, up from $3m two years before when its signature canned water product first became available.
Discussing the company’s advertising tactics, Cessario said: “I do not know what other water brands spend, but we are not going to have Coca-Cola or Pepsi-like budgets to spend. We do not have $300m to throw at something, so every piece of marketing that we make has to be interesting or entertaining so that people organically spread it.”
The company’s valuation stands at $525m. It had disclosed a $1.6m seed round in May 2019 that helped lift its overall money raised to $2.25m, before adding $9m in a series A round led by Velvet Sea Ventures nine months later that also featured returning backer Science and multiple individuals.
Liqueur producer Pernod Ricard’s corporate venturing arm, Convivialité Ventures, then took part in Liquid Death’s $23m series B round in October 2020, participating alongside Velvet Sea Ventures, an unnamed family office and angel investor Fat Mike.
One of 2021’s largest exits was in an adjacent space, when Coca-Cola acquired the 85% of sports drink producer Bodyarmor it did not own in return for $5.6bn, in November.
Image courtesy of Supplying Demand Inc.
