Has Liquid Death still got liquidity?

Here's the inside track on whether having a disruptive brand still pays.

Feb 10, 2025

Liquid Death is pulling out of the UK. Officially, the brand cites its shift from canning in the Austrian Alps to a new Virginia facility. But calling the move “temporary” feels hopeful. A second go at a UK launch would be tricky; it’s hard to go viral if the first reaction has fallen flat, all of which raises eyebrows about Liquid Death as a going concern.

Some marketers are relishing the schadenfreude. And I get why you’d roll your eyes at Liquid Death’s struggles—there’s a guilty pleasure in watching the hype machine stall. The case study is shoved in our faces as proof that brands—if set free from corporate compromise and traditional media—can roam wild, entertain the masses, and watch the dollars roll in.

That said, Liquid Death’s $1.4 billion valuation has demonstrated in no uncertain terms that the brand can still be the ultimate mind-melt in modern marketing. It’s delivered impressive sales growth:

2019: $3M
2020: $10M
2021: $45M
2022: $130M
2023: $263M

The success of Liquid Death is pure marketing mythology

Founder Mike Cessario is a former Adland creative director who cut his teeth at Crispin Porter + Bogusky—the agency that defined and derailed 2000s advertising. Their work for Burger King was built on an ‘entertain or die’ philosophy, with the agency boasting: “If someone held up a liquor store in our BK mask, you’d have to admit—that’s kinda cool.”

His co-creator? Will Carsola, the mind behind Adult Swim’s Mr. Pickles.
His VP of creativity? Andy Pearson, another Crispin alum.
His lead backer is Michael Jones of Science Ventures, the former CEO of MySpace whose biggest win was selling viral success Dollar Shave Club to Unilever for $1 billion.

Despite the punk-rock energy of the team, Liquid Death’s seed stages would have been built through structured test-and-learn formulae. Science Ventures doesn’t just throw money at ideas; it throws ‘science’ at them first. They demand that brands prove their social media popularity before releasing capital. But when something spikes, they pour fuel like any rapacious venture capital fund. After all, creative social media is fine, but access to capital is the game. The problem? Valuations need to keep climbing.

And Liquid Death’s funding rounds tell that story:

2019: $1.6M
2020: $9M
2021: $15M
2022: $70M (valuation: $700M)
2023: $65M (valuation: $1.4B)

So far, $162 million has been invested to generate $415 million in sales. Ok, it is not unusual for consumer brands to require large amounts of capital initially. But five to seven years in, the question stops being “How high can we go?” and starts being “How do we cash out?”.

What are insiders saying about Liquid Death’s UK exit?

Everyone is blaming everyone else: Liquid Death has burned through four different sales directors who missed crazy growth targets set by the board. A grassroots approach would have probably been best, but the U.S. team was drunk on their valuation, signing off high-profile UK festival sponsorships. The retail listings were exceptional, but the sale rate didn’t follow, leaving warehouses overstocked.

It’s worth noting that Liquid Death is no longer a water brand—only 30% of its revenue comes from canned water. The rest? Flavoured sparkling water and iced tea. Which tells you something. With $112 billion of bottled water up for grabs, Liquid Death’s appeal shows signs of hitting a glass ceiling based on water sales so far—already, it’s having to find growth in other highly contested markets of flavoured drinks.

And then there’s Oatly

Another darling of the rebel-brand movement, Oatly, IPO’d in 2021 at a staggering $10 billion valuation—a 23x multiple on its $421 million revenue. At first blush, given the current trajectory, Liquid Death is on track for the same. Booyah.

But the vibes have shifted.

Consumer hype brands aren’t hitting their exits. Venture capital has pivoted to profitability-first. And the numbers don’t lie: Oatly’s revenue has doubled to $800m since 2021, but losses have run into the hundreds of millions yearly. Valuation? Down to $300m (or 0.4x revenue).

In other words, you got punked if you bought Oatly stock at the IPO. And that’s the risk for Liquid Death investors. With such a high valuation, Liquid Death’s value to a strategic acquirer could be considerably less. Welcome to the perils of venture capital versus bootstrapping.

So, what’s next?

Cessario has long said that finding a manufacturing facility for real, mineral-rich water was brutally hard. The move from Austria to the Arizona plant might unlock a long-term play into the “eco-health” space and become a unique manufacturing strength similar to BrewDog’s hyper-efficient plant in Aberdeen. But that’s a big if given Liquid Death has never entirely owned the emotional resonance of eco or health brands. Not that both categories couldn’t use the f*ck-you energy that Liquid Death’s fans love, but irony has limits.

Liquid Death was a joke Facebook page and a viral video long before an actual product existed. Now, as a real business with rabid investors, life has changed. Leaning on entertainment is an adolescent phase for brands that need to scale in the way that Liquid Death’s venture backing demands. Like every other trend that blows up on social, Liquid Death has to deal with what happens when the wave crashes down. The real challenge isn’t getting attention—it’s keeping it.

Why this one stings

Liquid Death stirs emotions because it represents what creative people thought—or hoped—working in branding would be like. In other words, fun.

Cessario has cried Richard Branson’s passionate, anti-establishment, make people smile approach as inspiration. But here’s the reality: the return of creativity isn’t the cheat code it once was. And not in today’s AI-driven, performance-heavy landscape.

But start-ups should be about fearless audacity.

They should be about taking risks, trusting instincts, and backing creative ideas—even when they seem insane. That’s what makes marketing worthwhile.

Liquid Death’s name reminds us:
We’re all gonna die soon.

So, let’s indulge in the creative bets once in a while. I hope Cessario and his team keep rolling upward, and the final joke is Liquid Death becoming a trillion-dollar drinks brand and acquiring Coca-Cola. However romantic, we lose something when we stop trusting the weird and the wild.

For now, that’s a big if.

Let’s rise together with each article. ♡