Lucky Energy is Building a 'Rebel Brand' to Disrupt the $25 Billion Energy Drink Market

Forbes

16-05-2025

NBA Player Naz Reid with Lucky Drink
Courtesy of Lucky Energy
There's a new kid on the block in the energy drink space called Lucky Energy – which launched in 2023 with guns blazing, and is aiming to knock Red Bull off of its throne as the leader in this category. Lucky is marketed as a 'better-for-you' beverage made with five key ingredients (caffeine - 200 mg per can; maca root, beta-alanine, ginseng and taurine) and zero sugar. It is designed to give consumers the wellness and energy benefits, without the caffeine crash.
Investors are taking note. In March 2025, the startup closed a $14.2 million oversubscribed Series A1 round, bringing its total funding to over $40 million. The round was led by consumer-focused VC firm Maveron, with co-investors, including DMG Ventures, Second Sight Ventures, Imaginary Ventures, Brand Foundry Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Sugar Capital. Dan Ginsberg, the former CEO of Red Bull North America has also joined Lucky's board of directors.
Prior to founding Lucky, CEO Richard Laver had extensive experience with formulating beverages with nutrition in mind. Driven to action by his own daughter Katie, who was born with cerebral palsy and had severe dietary restrictions preventing her from gaining weight, he founded Kate Farms in 2012, as a medical nutrition company specializing in plant-based, organic formulas for individuals with chronic illnesses and those requiring tube feeding. Kate Farms was recently in the news as the French food giant Danone, whose brands include Activia, Silk, Oikos and Evian water, announced its acquisition of a majority stake in the company.
I spoke with Laver, a mission-driven entrepreneur and self-proclaimed rebel, along with Lucky's chief marketing officer and two of its investors, to understand exactly how his new company is disrupting the $25 Billion US energy drink market.
Walk down the energy section of your local grocery aisle and behold a sea of colorful cans from brands like Red Bull (~50% market share), Monster (~28% market share), Celsius, Rockstar, C4, Ghost, Reign, Alani Nu, Bloom, Bang and the list goes on.
Assortment of Energy Drinks
Getty Images
The obvious question is, why launch yet another energy drink?
Investor Natalie Massenet of Imaginary Ventures1 explained that entering a crowded market is the name of the game in every consumer business, 'whether it's an apparel brand, a running shoe company, skincare…makeup. It's not just in beverage. As consumer tastes evolve and an incumbent brand does not keep up with those shifts, then there's opportunity.'
Indeed, consumer tastes have been shifting towards healthier beverage options, as evidenced by recent blockbuster acquisitions. In March 2025, Pepsi announced a $1.9 billion acquisition of Poppi, a fast-growing functional soda brand that combines prebiotics, fruit juice, and apple cider vinegar to create a low calorie soda with five grams of sugar per serving. In April 2025, Celsius completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of Alani Nu, a female-forward energy drink with zero sugar and functional ingredients that aim to enhance focus, metabolism, or stress balance, aligning with a wellness lifestyle.
Alani Nu and Celsius Drinks
Getty Images
Dan Levitan of Maveron,2 which led Lucky's latest investment round, shared that his firm had 'long looked at this category and never participated in it.' And so to get comfortable with the investment, he called up long-time friend Dan Ginsberg, former CEO of Red Bull North America, to weigh in. And the closer they looked, the more excited they became about the opportunity. One of the key product differentiators, Levitan explained, was the 'combination of 5 ingredients and zero sugar. It is a much, much, much cleaner label, with light carbonation.'
The healthier angle has brought new customers into the mix: women and the over 35 crowd. Laver explained that 'we thought it was going to be a male dominated brand like a lot of energy drinks,' and what we quickly found out was that we were selling to folks between the ages of 18 to 45 with rapid adoption from those ages 30 to 45. In addition, 'we are selling to almost 40% women right now with our 16 ounce can.'
A case-in-point illustration: both Massenet and Levitan expressed excitement that they both love drinking Lucky Energy. Massenet shared, 'Lucky has replaced my 4 o'clock cup of coffee.' Levitan chimed in, 'I enjoy the drink in the morning and in the afternoon, and I don't spike.'
'One of our biggest sellers on TikTok is this Swaggy grandpa, and he's a 60 year old boomer selling Lucky like it's going out of style,' Laver exclaimed.
Laver spent seven months in his kitchen perfecting the formula for Lucky Energy. He was inspired by Peter Rahal at Rx Bar, because Rahal was able to innovate within the extremely competitive protein bar category. 'I wanted to take the less-is-more approach and create a blue ocean strategy where it would bring people in, who were frankly scared of energy drinks.'
Assortment of Rx Bars
Getty Images
Using his experience from Kate Farms and the super food world, Laver decided to incorporate maca root as the 'hero ingredient'. It can 'calm your nervous system, stop the jitters, give you the B vitamins that you need and help with sexual health.' He also incorporated some of the usual suspects in existing energy drink brands — taurine for brain health, beta-alanine for muscle recovery and ginseng for overall wellness — but he tinkered with the dosages to 'find a balance of getting the performance without the jitters.'
Lucky Can Nutrition Facts
Courtesy of Lucky Energy
An important caveat: although Lucky Energy operates in the better-for-you health segment, it does contain sucralose (better known by the brand name Splenda), which is technically 'zero sugar' but has been shown in research studies to affect the gut microbiome, leading to digestive issues in some people, among other health concerns.
Laver explained his decision to use sucralose: 'Some of these legacy brands have 60 grams of sugar per can…and we thought about putting natural cane sugar, which was going to be 25 grams of sugar, or stevia or monk fruit, but we couldn't get the taste right.' And the reality is that with some key exceptions like for example, Gorgie, most energy drinks that are sugar-conscious use sucralose as an artificial sweetener (i.e., Alani, Celsius).
Perhaps even more resonant than its cleaner label, Lucky's brand story is helping the startup break through, especially on social media and digital.
Laver's backstory is both tragic and inspiring. When he was 12 years old, he was one of the few survivors in a devastating plane crash, which killed 136 passengers, including his father. Following the crash, he dealt with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and even homelessness before turning his life around. He shared, 'I think when you survive a plane crash, you don't ever go small again. You're like, if I'm going to be wiped out tomorrow, I'm going big. There's no more risk than being in a plane crash.'
And this 'go big or go home because anything that can happen' energy, can be seen in the brand name, which was originally 'Lucky F*ck Energy' before entering retail shelves (the 'F word' is still on the can, but it is now redacted).
Laver shared, the brand is meant to be authentic and irreverent…not polished. An embodiment of the underdog. With Lucky, 'I wanted to show that great things can come from people that you never expect, and that usually it's the rebel…the outsider…the person willing to break the rules."
Hamid Saify, Lucky's Chief Marketing Officer (who was part of the early team at the edgy water brand Liquid Death) has taken the founder's vision and really brought it to life through viral digital content.
Saify, who gleaned a lot from the lean marketing strategy deployed at Liquid Death, explained how Lucky has been able to grow its socials so quickly – from 1,000 followers on TikTok to close to 350,000 – in just two years.
'You can go viral by turning on your camera on your phone. We move quickly. We typically go from concept to production in anywhere between three to five weeks. Our ideas are really tight and put together. But also we're very efficient with our spending, and we're able to get really high fidelity, great production for less than 1/10th of what it would typically cost. For example, we tend to shoot most of our bigger productions in the range of $15 - $30K. But in my career, working with bigger brands on the ad agency side of things, these campaigns tended to have a budget that was well into the six figures – I've made pizza ads that were close to half a million dollars.'
Saify elaborated on how Lucky thinks about creative direction in its campaigns. 'In most of our ads, we don't talk about the health benefits - zero sugar, zero calories. We are rethinking what good marketing is. We're very tongue in cheek. We're always going to push the boundary and stir up controversy.'
Ad Campaign - Call Me to Get Lucky
Courtesy of Lucky Energy
'We know that for some people the content might be a little bit abrasive and that's okay. As long as we get people to feel something. Share it with a friend. Laugh at it, think about it! That's really the goal,' Saify elaborated.
Key growth metrics have tracked with the social media campaigns.
One metric that they analyze is the stop ratio – how many people watched after the two second mark, six second mark and fifteen second mark relative to the amount of impressions that were served. Another metric is the engagement rate and the share rate. Finally, Lucky looks at brand search demand and sales. Saify explained, 'we can literally track search and sales from our TikTok shop', for instance, and see pretty immediately that the sales correlate to trending videos.
With all of the momentum that Lucky has built up on social media, the startup is poised to scale.
The business is on track to do between $30 to $40 million dollars in revenue, according to Laver. And they are currently in 10,000 retail stores or 'doors', and expect to be in 15,000 doors by the end of 2025. While Lucky mostly sells in convenience stores, or 'C-stores' across Southern California, Texas, New York and New England, Saify explained that they just secured nine divisions of Albertsons which is a huge stepping stone to entering more grocery stores nationwide.
Laver elaborated on his vision for growth, and the two key pillars that have been important in growing the business: strong margins and a super team.
'It's all about having the end in sight. I want to take this company public. I visualized myself ringing the bell, and selling the IPO. So I understand what I need to do to get there.'
First of all, 'no one messes with our margins, which is around 57-60%' he shared. This figure is comparable with, or even better than top competitors in the energy drink sector like Monster, which averages 54% or Celsius which averages 52% gross margins. 'Gross margin is absolute king right now, after you get product-market fit.'
Massenet confirmed, 'any business we invest in has to have unbelievably strong unit economics. And we've just watched the markets react to tariffs. Products are manufactured all over the place and shipped from all over the place. And so a very strong, gross margin allows you to withstand economic pressures.'
The second pillar important for scaling, is a strong executive team. Laver has been very intentional about recruiting a 'super team' who has deep expertise in building strong brands on digital, like Saify, as well as operational expertise like Matt Rickert, his Senior VP of Operations who also came over from Liquid Death. Laver was very clear: 'If you really want to move a company with ultra speed like I'm moving it, you need to decentralize decision making to be able to give people that autonomy. Otherwise, you cannot scale a company as much, and it's actually dangerous for the future of the business. '
Lucky's investors are excited to have Richard leading this super team. Massenet emphasized that second time founders are always very exciting. And elaborated that 'Richard is a maniacal, inspiring founder who is relentless and has the desire and the need to build something that is bigger than himself.' Levitan added, 'He is a genius formulator who is unique and passionate, with an authentic founder story.'