How Poppi went from a Shark Tank pitch to a $1.95B exit

Equity

TechCrunch

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For years, venture capitalists have been skeptical of beverage startups, citing thin margins and brutal distribution as reasons most brands never break out. But a new wave of “functional soda” companies has been challenging that assumption, including Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that grew from a kitchen experiment into a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo. On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth to talk about building a beverage startup in a venture world dominated by SaaS and AI. From pitching on Shark Tank while nine months pregnant to scaling a digital-first brand during COVID, and now returning as a Shark herself, Ellsworth shares how social media, fast marketing bets, and customer feedback helped turn a niche drink into a category-defining company. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Ellsworth’s Shark Tank return, and how she evaluates founders on the other side of the pitch. How Ellsworth turned a personal health issue into Poppi and built early traction at farmers' markets. Why TikTok and community-driven marketing helped the brand rack up billions of views and loyal fans. The risky decision to buy a last-minute Super Bowl ad, and how the team executed it in days. What it’s like selling a startup to PepsiCo while trying to preserve the brand’s identity. Why beverage startups almost inevitably need acquisition-level distribution to scale. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Presented by Dot Tech Domains, where tech founders find sharp, memorable names for their tech startups.
0:05.7	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:10.2	I'm Rebecca Boulon, and this is the episode where we bring on an industry expert to help us explore a trend in the tech world and dive deep.
0:17.5	When you're in the grocery store, you might have noticed some colorful cans of soda beckoning to you with fun flavors like strawberry lemon and cherry limeade and promises of prebiotics. Well, chances are those sodas are from a brand called Poppy, which was acquired last year by Pepsi Cola for nearly $2 billion. Today, we're joined by Poppy's co-founder Alison Ellsworth, who originally pitched the
0:38.6	business on Shark Tank, and now she's one of the sharks herself. She's here to talk to us about
0:43.8	scaling a consumer business, the importance of authenticity in digital marketing, and what
0:48.4	it's like to sit on the other side of the table.
0:56.4	Hey, Allison, welcome to the show.
0:58.7	Thanks for having me.
0:59.9	Thanks so much for being here.
1:01.0	It's so fun to have someone who's not like hard in the tech space on equity to talk to us
1:07.0	about, you know, different kinds of businesses and how to scale them.
1:09.5	So give us your origin story. You have a shark tank origin story and our listeners would love to hear it. You know,
1:14.9	we've had Mark Cuban on, so we are Shark Tank fans over here.
1:18.0	I love it. Yes. Shark Tank actually changed my life because what I started with Poppy was
1:25.5	in my kitchen. And I feel like what Shark Tank is about is like
1:29.1	the American dream right so I created it in my kitchen from a personal problem I had health
1:33.5	problems drink apple cider vinegar didn't like the taste so I solved the problem to make it taste
1:38.4	good went on to a shark tank and got a deal and then we took Poppy and launched it March 3rd, 2020, the first week of COVID.
1:47.0	But I love that we were able to do it during that time because we had to think differently at
1:51.4	Poppy since the beginning. And we were digital first, one of those first movers to TikTok and really
1:57.5	building like community online. And then just recently I sold Poppy to PepsiCo for $1.95 billion.
	...

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