What is Liquid Death?
A better-for-you beverage brand selling water, iced tea, sparkling drinks, and energy in tallboy cans.
- Category
- Non-alcoholic beverages
- Headquarters
- Santa Monica, CA
- Founded
- 2017
- Employees
- ~183 listed
- Total funding
- $267M+ disclosed
- Valuation
- $1.4B (Mar 2024)
What is Liquid Death?
Liquid Death is a Los Angeles-area beverage company that packages water and other low-calorie drinks in aluminum tallboy cans with heavy-metal-style branding. The company has turned a commodity category into an entertainment-led brand sold through national retail, DTC, Amazon, convenience, and event channels.
Liquid Death began with mountain water, but by 2026 its public positioning is a broader better-for-you beverage platform: still water, sparkling water, flavored sparkling, iced tea, electrolyte powder, and sparkling energy. The company reported $263 million in 2023 retail scanned sales and 113,000 retail doors across the U.S. and U.K.; third-party estimates put 2024 revenue around $333 million.
The company is best understood as a brand and distribution machine rather than a water technology company. It uses entertainment, social content, celebrity collaborations, and irreverent sustainability messaging to win shelf attention against bottled water, sparkling water, iced tea, and energy competitors. Its scale signal is retail door expansion and category adjacency: once the can, brand, and distributor network are in place, new flavors and formats can create more shelf space without rebuilding the customer base from scratch.
What does Liquid Death offer?
Liquid Death sells canned water and adjacent low-calorie beverages, with limited drops and merchandise reinforcing the brand community.
- Mountain water· Water
- Sparkling water· Water
- Flavored sparkling water· Water
- Iced tea· Tea
- Sparkling energy drinks· Energy
- Electrolyte drink mixes· Hydration
- Merchandise and limited drops· Brand
How does Liquid Death make money?
Liquid Death earns revenue by selling beverages through retail distributors, national retailers, convenience stores, Amazon, and its own ecommerce site. It also monetizes brand heat through merchandise and limited collaborations.
The economic model is consumer packaged goods: manufacture or source beverage products, sell cases into distributors and retailers, and use brand demand to earn more doors, endcaps, and repeat purchases. Online pricing changes by pack and channel, but public product pages commonly show six-packs around the low-teens and twelve-packs around the mid-teens to twenties, while retail single cans are priced like premium water, tea, or energy rather than bulk bottled water.
Growth is driven by distribution density and category expansion. The March 2024 financing explicitly included distributor investors, which matters because beverage scale depends on route-to-market execution, field sales, retailer relationships, and reliable inventory. The CFO hire in October 2025, from PepsiCo and Health-Ade, is a maturity signal: Liquid Death is adding finance leadership for margin management, working capital, and a broader beverage portfolio.
Who leads Liquid Death?
Liquid Death is led by founder and CEO Mike Cessario, with finance leadership added in 2025 as the company expands across beverage categories.
- Mike CessarioFounder & CEOFounder, since 2017Former creative director who built Liquid Death around entertainment-first beverage marketing.
- Ricky KhetarpaulChief Financial OfficerJoined 2025Former Health-Ade CFO and PepsiCo alum overseeing finance as the company scales.
- Amy Friedlander HoffmanChief Business OfficerPublicly listed executiveCommercial leader associated with partnerships, growth, and business development.
- Peter PhamInvestor and board-level supporterEarly backerScience and founder-network investor visible in Liquid Death's early growth story.
How do you contact Liquid Death's leadership?
Liquid Death does not publish verified personal executive emails. LeadIQ reports a first-name pattern, but because personal addresses are not company-published, use public company channels for support, press, wholesale, and partnerships.
first@liquiddeath.com reported by LeadIQ; personal format not independently company-publishedHow much funding has Liquid Death raised?
Liquid Death has disclosed more than $267 million of funding, with its March 2024 strategic financing valuing the company at $1.4 billion.
Liquid Death raised early institutional capital after launching commercially in 2019, then filed to raise nearly $15 million in 2021. It closed a $70 million Series D in 2022 at a reported $700 million valuation, followed by a 2023 Series E that Forge describes as a $76.5 million round bringing the company to unicorn status.
The latest major primary round was March 2024: $67 million in strategic financing at a $1.4 billion valuation, including distributor participation and celebrity investors such as Josh Brolin and DeAndre Hopkins. Some later secondary-market and database sources list additional or amended 2025 financing, but no company announcement superseding the $1.4 billion valuation was found by June 2026. Treat the company as late-stage private, not public, with IPO speculation but no filed listing.
How did Liquid Death get here?
Liquid Death moved from a viral canned-water idea into a billion-dollar multi-category beverage company by pairing CPG distribution with entertainment marketing.
- 2017Company foundedMike Cessario starts developing the canned-water brand and its anti-plastic, entertainment-led positioning.
- 2019Commercial launchLiquid Death launches canned mountain water and begins building social attention before broad retail scale.
- 2021Additional equity filingThe company files paperwork for nearly $15 million in additional equity funding.
- 2022Series DA $70 million round reportedly values Liquid Death around $700 million.
- Mar 2024$67M strategic roundStrategic financing values the business at $1.4B after $263M in 2023 retail scanned sales.
- Oct 2025CFO hireRicky Khetarpaul joins from Health-Ade/PepsiCo as Liquid Death expands into energy and more beverage categories.
Who are Liquid Death's competitors?
Liquid Death competes across bottled water, sparkling water, iced tea, energy, and lifestyle beverages, so its competitors range from legacy water brands to modern functional drinks.
- LaCroixMass sparkling water brand with grocery scale but less edgy entertainment-led branding.
- Topo ChicoPremium mineral sparkling water owned by Coca-Cola with strong on-premise and retail recognition.
- SpindriftSparkling water brand differentiated by real squeezed fruit juice.
- Vita CocoHydration-focused beverage platform with coconut water and adjacent functional drinks.
- CelsiusFast-growing energy drink brand competing for convenience-store cooler space and better-for-you energy occasions.
Liquid Death — frequently asked questions
