附近上门

If you鈥檙e thirsty, you could drink plain water. It鈥檚 got zero calories, quenches your thirst, and keeps you hydrated.

But what would be the fun in that? And who would it impress?

No. You need a drink that鈥檚 iconic and offbeat. Something with the status that only a celebrity backer can confer.

This seems to be the predominant branding strategy among beverage startups. An analysis of 附近上门 data revealed drinks are an unusually star-studded category for venture investment.

From to to , a high proportion of the more heavily funded beverage startups have one or more famous names among their investors. Such startups are also heavily clustered in the celebrity-dense Los Angeles area.

To illustrate the nexus of celebrity investors and hydration-focused companies, we put together a list of 10 venture-backed brands, including their famous backers.

Sure looks healthy

Perhaps it says something about our era that A-list celebrities have chosen to offer their names and cash in support of a pretty healthy assortment of drinks.

They鈥檙e not marketing alcoholic beverages, or even stuff that鈥檚 high in sugar and calories. In fact, two of them 鈥� and 鈥� are best known for plain water.

Others are on the nonalcoholic beverage bandwagon. The best-known name here is nonalcoholic craft beer maker , which has raised the most venture funding of any company on our list. A distant second is , a maker of alcohol-free aperitifs that counts pop star as a co-founder.

In fact, the only one that could generate a buzz is , a maker of bubbly drinks containing THC and CBD distillate. Even Cann鈥檚 founders, however, add a wholesome angle to their pitch, touting organic agave used in place of sugar and the drink鈥檚 ability to aid in 鈥渞ising above the stress of daily life.鈥�

Why do drinks need celebrity endorsers?

While we鈥檝e grown accustomed to the concept of celebrity-endorsed drinks, at root there鈥檚 still something odd about the strong tie between branding and quenching our thirst. After all, most Americans have tap water that can be safely consumed or easily filtered.

Even so, much of our disposable income still goes to beverages. Last year, U.S. retail sales of nonalcoholic packaged beverages topped $246 billion, up 7.5% year over year, per . That tallies out to over $700 per American annually.

By volume, meanwhile, the most popular packaged drink by far is plain old water, which could explain why we鈥檝e seen marketing-savvy celebrities including and 叠别测辞苍肠茅 dipping a toe into the space. It鈥檚 not a new phenomenon either, with BMC estimating that water has outsold carbonated soft drinks by volume for at least the past eight years.

Personally, I鈥檒l admit to being reeled in by many of the celebrity-endorsed beverage choices. While filtered tap water may be the cheaper, more practical go-to, it鈥檚 hard to compete in a world that also features fizzy, low-cal, probiotic, heavily advertised options all artfully packaged and chilled just right.

Related reading:

• Celebrity Crypto Backers Hit Pause On Startup Deals
• Food Investors Bet On Healthy, Convenient, Fermented And Highly Caffeinated
• Not Quite Soda, Not Quite Alcohol: A New Boozeless Booze Is Finding Its Fit

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