Sensori Closes Oversubscribed Pre-Seed Round of Nearly $1M Funded by Creators, Community and Pro Athletes

Sensori Closes an Oversubscribed Pre-Seed Round of Nearly $1M Led by Creators, Community, Entertainers & Pro-Athletes

The functional mood-boosting beverage brand reimagining social and self-care drinking experiences closes an oversubscribed pre-seed round driven entirely by creators, community, and pro-athletes — bringing 40+ creators onto the cap table and expanding its product line to four flavors across two lines.

September 22, 2026 — DALLAS, TX — Sensori, the functional non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage brand, today announced it has closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round of nearly $1,000,000, funded entirely by creators, community members, and professional athletes — with support from leading creator agencies Kensington Grey and DBA, and pro-athlete engagement supported by ECOS Group. The round challenges traditional fundraising norms in the beverage category, positioning Sensori as a category captain in one of consumer packaged goods' fastest-growing sectors: functional, mood-forward drinking.

The close caps ten consecutive months of month-over-month growth for Sensori, including five sold-out production runs and accelerated digital growth across TikTok Shop and Instagram, where the brand has ranked among the leading stores in the beverage category. Alongside the raise, Sensori is expanding its product lineup with two new flavors, bringing its total to four flavors across its Connect and Play lines — including its variety pack, which has repeatedly sold out since launch.

Transforming Creators and Community Into Owners

Most beverage brands treat creators as a marketing line item: a sponsored post, a discount code, a one-off campaign. Sensori built its cap table around a different idea: that the people driving a brand's growth online should hold equity in the outcome.

"As Shanna and I started thinking through funding, we kept coming back to the same idea: creators were already the reason people discovered and bought this brand, so why were we treating them like a marketing line item instead of a partner? That question became the model. Creators invest their own money and commit to defined activations alongside us, so it's not just equity handed out, it's capital, ownership, and an active role in building the business together from day one," said Darean Rhodes, Co-Founder & COO of Sensori.

"When someone who's built their audience around lifestyle, wellness, and self-care puts their own capital into your cap table, that's a different kind of signal than any sponsorship could send. It tells you they believe in the outcome, not just a one-time transaction," said Shanna Pearre, Co-Founder & CEO of Sensori. "We're not waiting around for institutional capital to catch up to what our community already knew. Our creators, our athletes, our customers saw this before anyone else did, and now they own a piece of what they helped build. That's the playbook going forward."

The round attracted strategic capital from a notable group of creators and professional athletes, including Kandi Burruss, Jackie Aina, Jenee Naylor, Allyiah Gainer (known to her audience as Allyiahs Face), Taylor Townsend, Kam Curl, Scot Louie, and Les Alfred – alongside more than 50 other creators, cultural tastemakers and community investors. The raise was also supported by leading creator agencies Kensington Grey and DBA, with pro-athlete engagement supported by ECOS Group, a professional athlete management company — signaling a broader shift in how creator and athlete representation is engaging with brands: moving talent from paid endorsers into equity owners with a direct stake in a brand's outcome.

"The beverage landscape is changing fast, and Sensori is emerging as a clear winner. Consumers aren't just looking for new options to drink, they're looking for a brand they can truly believe in, built by real people for real people. That's why we're obsessed with Sensori at KG. We believe in the team, the story behind the brand, and what it stands for. I've personally invested in Sensori, and so have several of our top creators, people with a proven track record for driving real conversion. At KG, we invest in people, and after meeting Shanna & Darean, we were fully invested and believe these women are building the next billion-dollar beverage company," said Shannae Ingleton-Smith, Founder, Kensington Grey.

A Category That's Still Being Defined

Non-alcoholic functional beverages have moved from niche to mainstream, but most players compete on relaxation or energy alone. Sensori was built around a different premise: that mood, not just calm or focus, is the ritual people are actually reaching for, whether they're winding down alone or getting ready to go out with friends. From day one, Sensori's core focus has been a culture-forward, founder-led approach to brand-building–rooting the product in community, creators, and the cultural moments its audience actually shows up for, rather than leading with a traditional retail or advertising push. That approach, with Pearre and Rhodes driving the brand's voice and presence directly, has been central to the growth Sensori has seen to date. Sensori has partnered with cultural tastemaking brands including Chase Ink, Charlotte Tilbury, and CultureCon, further cementing its position at the intersection of community, culture, and consumer product.

Since launching in February 2025, Sensori has built its Connect line (Raspberry Cucumber, Yuzu Peach) for quieter, self-care moments and its Play line (Blood Orange Habanero, Tropical Hibiscus) for social occasions — each can formulated around Kanna and Blue Lotus alongside mushroom extracts and adaptogens. Quarterly revenue has grown 9X over the past five quarters, with Q1 2026 alone surpassing the brand's entire first three quarters of 2025 combined. The brand has fulfilled more than 7,000 orders and produced more than 100,000 cans to date, with press coverage in Forbes, Essence, Ebony, AfroTech, and theSkimm, and a repeat customer rate of roughly 23%.

The Founders

Pearre and Rhodes met as children and grew up together as best friends, long before either had a career in beverage or tech. Sensori was born out of a problem the two of them were living, not one they observed from the outside.

"Shanna and I have been best friends since we were kids," said Darean Rhodes, COO and Co-Founder. "Sensori didn't start as a business idea — it started because we were both tired of relying on alcohol to unwind or to feel present at social things, and dealing with everything that came with it: the mental fog the next day, the weight gain, the anxiety that crept in even when the night itself was fun. We wanted something that gave us the ritual without the comedown, and when we couldn't find it, we decided to build it ourselves."

That lived experience shapes the brand's two product lines: Connect, built for quieter, self-care moments, and Play, built for social occasions — both formulated to deliver a functional mood lift without the downsides the founders set out to eliminate.

What's Next

Having established cultural relevance through its creator- and community-led growth, Sensori will use the new capital to continue elevating that cultural resonance while turning its focus toward expanding its retail presence. The brand has its sights set on locking in an anchor retail account to support its next phase of fast expansion, and is preparing a 160,000-can production run to support the variety pack launch and continued growth into Q4. Sensori is also planning brand activations at CultureCon and a college homecoming tour at select campuses across the country this fall.

Another core focus for the brand is a launch into grocery chain and hospitality, with the retail push being supported by Jacqueline Harrill, the former VP of Sales and Distribution at Poppi, who has joined Sensori as a strategic advisor supporting the brand's go-to-market retail strategy. "Jacqueline has scaled a functional beverage brand through exactly the kind of retail growth we're pursuing right now," said Pearre. "Having her in the room as we lock in our anchor account and build out our broader retail footprint is a huge advantage."

About Sensori

Sensori is a Dallas-based functional non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverage brand reimagining social and self-care drinking rituals. Founded in February 2025 by Shanna Pearre (CEO) and Darean Rhodes (COO), Sensori produces four SKUs across two lines — Connect (Raspberry Cucumber, Yuzu Peach) and Play (Blood Orange Habanero, Tropical Hibiscus) — formulated with Kanna, Blue Lotus, mushroom extracts, and adaptogens. Currently driven by a highly engaged social and community following,