The Plug Drink, a plant-based recovery beverage startup based in California, has announced it raised $1.5 in seed funding as it prepares for national expansion.
The seed funding round counted the participation of prominent figures like wish.com’s CEO Peter Szulczewski, NBA basketball player Myles Turner, Miley Cyrus’ manager Adriana Arc, Backend Capital’s general partner Lucy Guo, FL player Troy Hill, actor Frankie Delgado, and many more.
Currently, the drink is only available via online channels and across liquor stores in Michigan and Southern California.
Having seen a steady growth between 30% and 50% each month since May, The Plug Drink is currently planning to roll across the United States by partnering with brick-and-mortar retailers.
Justin Kim, who co-founded the startup with his brother Ray Kim, said that the drink’s formula is a new take on East Asian practices specially tailored for millennial and Gen-Z consumers.
He referred to the drink’s formula, which consists of 13 different plant-based products with small quantities of vitamin C and D, by stating:
“Our proprietary plant-based formula has the highest herbal concentration (3.6g) versus any direct competitors in the emerging functional recovery space. We also own 100% of our formula instead of working with white-label manufacturers. Prior to launching, our manufacturing partner and us invested millions into R&D over a three-year period.”
Kim believes that this reversal of its competitor’s formula, which relies heavily on a small number of plants and large quantities of vitamins, makes the product especially attractive to newer generations in an increasingly competitive market.
Giants like Unilever and Nestlé have recently invested in startups like Liquid I.V. and Nuun in an attempt to capitalize on the increasing demand.
With this funding, the plant-based recovery beverage startup is set to hit the seven-figure sales target it set for 2021, according to the Kim brothers., which will be the result of partnerships with new mass retailers such as Walmart.
