Poppi’s TikTok Foundation, Super Bowl Commercials, and Her Return to Shark Tank

For years, venture capitalists Skeptical about starting drinksciting razor-thin margins and brutal distribution as reasons for most brands’ lack of success. But a new wave of “functional soda” companies have been challenging that assumption, including Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that has evolved from a kitchen experiment into a… PepsiCo’s $1.95 billion acquisition of the company.

In this episode of TechCrunch justice Podcast, she’s joined by Alison Ellsworth, co-founder of Poppi, to talk about building a beverage startup in an enterprise world dominated by SaaS and AI. From promoting Shark Tank while nine months pregnant to going viral on TikTok and buying a last-minute Super Bowl ad, Ellsworth explains what it really takes to build a category-defining consumer brand — and what she’s looking for now that she’s back on Shark Tank as an investor herself.

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