Canned water brand Liquid Death has closed a $15 million Series C round of funding that includes celebrities like Tony Hawk, Wiz Khalifa and Steve Aoki, as well as Live Nation Entertainment, which will carry the product as the exclusive water at over 120 venues and festivals across the United States.
How did Liquid Death get here?
Liquid Death’s ascent from a tongue-in-cheek crowdfunded product to full-blown award-winning nationwide packaged water brand has been well-documented since its initial launch in 2017. While it continues to push the envelope with its marketing and branding, the company, which markets both still and sparkling spring water sourced from Austria, has professionalized its operation as its distribution footprint expands to 16,000 locations in the U.S, including nationwide at Walmart, Whole Foods, Sprouts and 7-Eleven. Earlier this month, Amy Friedlander Hoffman, a former Head of Business for the Brand at Uber, was announced as Liquid Death’s new Chief Business Officer.
This latest round of financing brings the company total funding to date to around $50 million, following a $9 million Series A round in February 2020 and a $23 million Series B round in October 2020.
Who’s involved?
In an email to BevNET, Liquid Death founder and CEO Mike Cessario said this round was about bringing on strategic partners rather than raising more venture capital; of those, the big name in this round is Live Nation. With concerts and live events largely on hiatus due to the pandemic, the global concert promotion and venues operations company reported a loss of $152 million in Q1 of this year, with revenue falling 84%. However, the company expects that Q2 will be its first quarter to show year-on-year improvement since Q4 2019, and is projecting to generate positive adjusted operating income through the second half of 2021.
Though the size of their individual stakes were not disclosed, the brand welcomed several well-known names to its cap table in this round, including legendary pro skater Tony Hawk (also a brand ambassador for Jones Soda), multi-platinum rapper Wiz Khalifa and EDM DJ/artist Steve Aoki, an investor in Liquid I.V. prior to its sale to Unilever. Also participating in the round were artists Machine Gun Kelly and Trippie Redd, as well as Kelly Campbell, president of streaming TV platform Hulu, and Michael Dubin, founder of Dollar Shave Club.
What does it mean?
With another sizable funding round putting wind in its sails, Liquid Death’s partnership to become the exclusive water brand (both still and sparkling) sold in Live Nation’s venues and festivals — a roster than includes the Hollywood Palladium, The Gorge, The Fillmore, and Shoreline Amphitheater, to name a few — takes on even greater dimension. Liquid Death has long cultivated a relationship with heavy metal and punk rock audiences, as well as musicians themselves: Fat Mike of the band NOFX is an investor, while French electronic artist Marc Rebillet has collaborated with Liquid Death to create original content on Instagram.
“Our brand is continuing to grow rapidly, and this new round of funding will help us continue to scale our explosive retail business and further lean into our mission of using entertainment and sustainability to take over the world and turn the human race into flesh batteries to power our giant marketing robots,” Cessario said in an email.
Signing up Liquid Death also helps Live Nation address environmental concerns, specifically plastic pollution, which the events company said ranks as the “number one issue” amongst live music goers; according to Live Nation, 84% of live music goers responded that ending the sale of single use products at live music events is an urgent priority. As detailed in its Green Nation sustainability charter in 2019, Live Nation is phasing out the sale of single-use plastics at all owned and operated venues and events.
“We’re all ready to be back at live events, and as we return we want to continue taking steps to be more sustainable,” said Michael Rapino, President and CEO of Live Nation, in a press release. “We’ve found the perfect partner in Liquid Death – whose passion for music and protecting the planet will feed seamlessly into Live Nation’s future plans and events.”