Poppi (lowercase) was founded in 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. The brand rebranded to Poppi in 2020, with CAVU Consumer Partners as seed lead. It posted $500M-plus revenue in 2024 across 120-plus retailers. PepsiCo acquired the company in May 2025 for $1.95 billion, the largest functional-beverage exit in modern CPG history.
What is Poppi's operating model?
- Founder-led brand. Allison Ellsworth communicates directly with 1.2M-plus 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, and Rob Rausch (Love Island USA) drove creator content. Investors include Olivia Munn, Post Malone, and 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.
Who handles Poppi's communications and PR?
LaForce became Poppi's PR agency of record in July 2025, following the PepsiCo acquisition. Magrino, the New York City full-channel communications agency, held the role before that and anchored Poppi's pre-acquisition era including the Super Bowl moment. Tinuiti handles media buying. PepsiCo Beverages U.S., under CEO Ram Krishnan, is the parent; PepsiCo's in-house Content Studio works with 20-plus beverage brand teams and external agency partners.
Why does Poppi win 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.
