Liquid Death, a water brand that began life with a funny video to first test the concept, has grown serious about its growth prospects. The L.A.-based outfit, which sells canned mountain water from the Alps that will murder your thirst, has just landed $75 million in Series C funding led by the startup studio Science, which helped launch the company and now owns a "strong minority" position. Mike Jones said he wished Science owned more.
We talked to Liquid Death's CEO, Mike Cessario, about the company's growth. There is a lot to be proud of. Liquid Death has been sold in more than 29,000 stores throughout the US, and revenue has increased from $3 million in the first year to over 45 million last year.
Liquid Death is starting to roll out names that suit the brand's punk-metal ethos, and he thinks there is a lot of room to grow from here. Its first three products? Severed Lime, and Mango Chainsaw.
Cessario has credited the firm's growth with its grimly funny phrase, along with its packaging, arguing that aluminum is more recyclable than plastic.
Liquid Death has an organic growth strategy that has enabled the outfit to compete and thrive in a world rife with other water brands. Cessario insisted there was no comparison between Liquid Death and other beverage brands.
I don't know what other water brands spend, but we're not going to have budgets like Coca-Cola orPepsi. We don't have $300 million to throw at something, so every piece of marketing that we make has to be interesting or entertaining so that people organically spread it.
When an idea comes out of the blue, some of the marketing pieces come together quickly. A marketing piece can take six months to complete. Liquid Death and Tony Hawk collaborated on a stunt last summer, where Liquid Death sold 150 skateboard decks with ink from Tony Hawk. Cessario said that the decks sold out quickly, but it took some time to make them and to get a phlebotomist who could legally draw blood.
Cessario had the face of a Liquid Death customer tattooed on his arm.
Cessario told us that the company has more products to push, but that the focus is still on building a brand that is fun or more fun than junk food and alcohol brands. Cessario said that because it skews younger and male, it means new drinks, which are sweetened with a type of fruit called Agave nectar, and have less sugar and calories than regular drinks. He noted that they aren't catering to people who are obsessed with calories.
There are a lot of places in the U.S. that have yet to discover the brand. Cessario pointed out that Liquid Death had 9% of the total annual sales volume of retailers, whereas the water of Fiji had 90% of the total.
A sweeter deal with Amazon could increase that percentage. Liquid Death no longer gets charged for every case of water that it sells through Amazon but instead is selling water directly to the e-commerce giant, which was the reason Liquid Death recently passed an important metric that Amazon uses to decide when to start selling a product wholesale.
He said that Amazon is often the biggest sales channel for food and beverage brands.
Liquid Death has a new round of investors.
Liquid Death has raised $125 million.
It isn't revealing its valuation.
