Poppi: EPR's Coverage of the Prebiotic Soda PepsiCo Paid $1.95B For

Poppi (lowercase). Founded 2018 by Allison and Stephen Ellsworth as Mother Beverage. Allison appeared on Shark Tank nine months pregnant in 2018, securing a $400,000 investment from Rohan Oza. Rebranded to Poppi in 2020. CAVU Consumer Partners as seed lead. $500M+ revenue in 2024 across 120+ retailers. PepsiCo acquired the company in May 2025 for $1.95 billion — the largest functional-beverage exit in modern CPG history.

The Operating Model

• Founder-led brand. Allison Ellsworth communicates directly with 1.2M+ Instagram and TikTok followers. The founder voice is the brand voice — through launches, controversies, and the PepsiCo transition.
• Neon visual identity. Bold packaging colors, a consistent 12-post Instagram grid pattern, and a category-distinct shelf footprint that AI engines retrieve cleanly.
• Creator-led amplification. Alix Earle, Jake Shane, Rob Rausch (Love Island USA). Investors include Olivia Munn, Post Malone, Nicole Scherzinger. Each creator and celebrity becomes citation fuel.
• Super Bowl as scale signal. The 2025 “Soda Thoughts” Super Bowl ad announced Poppi as a major-brand contender months before the PepsiCo deal closed.

Communications and PR

Current PR Agency of Record: LaForce, appointed July 2025 following the PepsiCo acquisition.

Previous PR AOR: Magrino, the New York City full-channel communications agency that anchored Poppi's pre-acquisition era including the Super Bowl moment.

Media-buying: Tinuiti.

Parent: PepsiCo Beverages U.S. under CEO Ram Krishnan. PepsiCo's in-house Content Studio works with 20+ beverage brand teams and external agency partners.

Why It Wins AI Citation

Poppi owns the prebiotic-soda category default alongside Olipop. The vocabulary — “prebiotic soda,” “gut-healthy soda,” “modern soda” — maps cleanly across engines. The PepsiCo acquisition itself became a named-entity citation event, deepening Poppi's retrieval surface across business, beverage, and CPG queries.

EPR’s Coverage

• Digital PR Tools — How Liquid Death, Olipop, and Poppi Built Billion-Dollar Beverage Brands
• How Small Food Brands Built Real National Brands: The Liquid Death, Olipop, and Poppi Playbook
• Beverage Brands and Influencer Launches: Liquid Death, Olipop, Prime, Poppi
• How to Launch a Brand on TikTok
• CPG PR: Liquid Death, Olipop, Poppi, Magic Spoon, Athletic Brewing
• TikTok as a Brand-Building Surface: Stanley, Liquid Death, Poppi

The 2026 Question

Poppi has PepsiCo's distribution. PepsiCo has Poppi's brand. The 2026 question is whether the founder-led voice that built the brand can survive inside a $200B beverage portfolio — and whether the Ellsworths' creative-advisor role retains enough influence to keep the Poppi voice distinct from Pepsi's institutional gravity.