Have you ever been somewhere and it was nothing like you expected?

I have. I lived in Russia for a bit, and the gap between what I thought I knew and what I actually found there was significant. I had a strong opinion about a place I'd never really experienced. Turns out that's not quite the same thing as actually knowing it.

And look - I'm not about to tell you to go find yourself on a beach in Bali. This isn't that kind of newsletter.

But there's something to be said for actually experiencing something firsthand rather than just absorbing whatever version of it you've been handed. We're all working with what we've been given - news, TV, social media, that one friend who went somewhere for a week and came back a fully qualified expert. 

We stitch it all together and end up with something that feels like an informed opinion. Whether it's accurate is a completely separate question.

Travel has a way of sorting that out. Actually being somewhere tends to do more for your understanding of it than years of reading about it ever could.

Now, let’s look at a different type of trip - a UK drinks brand that started in a kitchen in 2019 and is projected to hit $100M in revenue this year.

If raising capital is on your radar - or you just want to know how it's done properly - this is a good one.

1/  TRIP was founded in 2019 by Olivia Ferdi and Dan Khoury, started as a CBD drinks brand and has since grown into 50,000 stores globally - including Tesco, Waitrose, Walmart and other major retailers

2/ They just raised $40M at a $300M valuation, making them the most valuable UK drinks brand since Innocent and Fever-Tree, and the highest-valued drinks business led by a female founder

3/ Celebrity investors including Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio and Ashley Graham backed the round - and their involvement is less about glamour and more about the psychology of how humans make decisions

4/ TRIP raised when they had $100M revenue, global distribution and a category on fire - meaning they walked into every investor conversation with options, and got the valuation to show for it

Olivia Ferdi and Dan Khoury started TRIP in their kitchen in 2019. Which sounds like the kind of origin story that gets romanticised in hindsight, but in this case is just literally what happened.

The idea was based on a very relatable problem: people wanted to unwind without the hangover. 

The alcohol alternative market existed, but nothing in it was particularly good. If you've ever stood in a pub garden holding an alcohol-free beer that tastes like sadness, you'll know exactly what I mean. The options were either aggressively healthy or basically just fizzy water with a sprig of something in it and a £7 price tag.

TRIP saw the gap and went after it.

They started with CBD-infused drinks, which at the time was a growing category with genuine consumer interest. The word CBD was doing a lot of heavy lifting around 2019 - it was on everything from face cream to dog treats, and nobody was entirely sure what it did, but everyone was fairly convinced it was good for something. 

Rather than staying rigidly in that lane - with all the regulatory headaches that come with it - TRIP evolved. Magnesium, adaptogens, botanicals. The focus shifted from the ingredient to the outcome: calm, without compromising on taste or experience.

The growth that followed was the kind that gets people's attention. TRIP topped the Alantra Fast 50 list of the UK's fastest-growing food and drink businesses in 2024. 

TRIP and Calm, the meditation app, partnered up. Both brands are selling the same thing - a way to unwind. So they pointed their audiences at each other. 

Revenue is projected to hit $100M in 2025 and more than double in 2026. All from something that started on a kitchen worktop.

In November 2025, TRIP closed a $40M round at a $300M valuation - and it's worth understanding exactly how that came together.

The round was led by Coefficient Capital, a New York-based firm that backs consumer brands with proven numbers behind them. 

Then came the celebrity investors, and this is where it gets interesting. Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Ashley Graham, Paul Wesley and Sophie Habboo. A pop star, a Victoria's Secret model, a Sports Illustrated cover star, an actor and a Made in Chelsea regular. All writing cheques into a drinks brand.

I was watching a documentary about Berlusconi recently - stay with me here - and regardless of what you think of his politics, the man survived scandal after scandal for decades. Not because people agreed with everything he did, but because a lot of people simply liked him. That's it. 

Human beings make decisions based on how something makes them feel, and then find reasons to justify it afterwards. Celebrity association works exactly the same way. You see Joe Jonas backing something, and before you've tried a single product, you're already slightly more inclined towards it. Nike worked this out with Michael Jordan in 1984. TRIP worked it out in 2025. The principle is identical.

Worth noting too that this was far from TRIP's first raise. They'd already brought in over £25M across a series of rounds dating back to 2021 - a $5M angel round, a $12M follow-on in 2022, and a £5.6M equity investment from The Equity Studio as recently as December 2024. The $40M dwarfs all of it - and the gap between those earlier rounds and this one tells you exactly how much the business had grown in between.

To put the valuation in context: TRIP is now the most valuable UK drinks brand since Innocent and Fever-Tree, and the highest-valued drinks business ever led by a female founder. With an IPO on the table - no timeline confirmed, but the direction of travel is pretty clear - this raise looks less like a destination and more like a launchpad.

A functional beverage company is a fairly specific thing to be building. The fundraising logic behind it is universal.

At its core, raising finance is just a negotiation. And in any negotiation, leverage is everything. The founders who walk away with the worst deals are almost always the ones who came to the table desperate - no runway left, no options, no choice but to take whatever was offered.

TRIP had $100M in revenue when they raised. They could have kept going without the $40M. That changes the entire dynamic - the terms you accept, the valuation you command, the investors you choose to work with. The $300M valuation didn't happen by accident. It happened because TRIP could genuinely have walked away.

The real test before any raise is simple: could you walk away from this deal if the terms weren't right? If yes, raise. If not, focus on getting to a position where it is. Knowing your options before you need them is the whole game. FundOnion makes that a lot easier.

TRIP walked into investor conversations with 50,000 stores, a celebrity partnership, a meditation app deal and $100M in revenue. That's a very different conversation to walking in with a deck and a dream.

Distribution, partnerships, proven sales - these are the things that give investors something tangible to point at. A business with real assets built before the raise gives investors something to believe in beyond the founder's conviction. Conviction is fine. Proof is better.

Whatever your equivalent of 50,000 stores is - build that first. Then raise.

Poppi sold for $1.95B. OLIPOP hit a $1.85B valuation. Functional beverages were having their moment, and TRIP raised right in the middle of it. They knew exactly what they were doing; they watched the market and moved at the exact right time.

Every category has a window. A period when investors understand it, consumers want it and the timing is right. The brands that raise during that window get better valuations, better terms and better investors than the ones who raise too early or too late.

The question worth asking right now: what's happening in your category, and are you positioned to move when the moment arrives?

Joe Jonas has never, as far as anyone is aware, spent significant time in the functional beverage industry. That's not the point.

The way humans make decisions is emotional first, rational second. We decide how we feel about something, then find reasons to justify it. Celebrity association creates a psychological primer - it makes people predisposed to think positively about a brand before they've tried a single product.

For most SMEs, a celebrity investor isn't realistic. But the principle scales down. A well-known customer, a credible industry figure, a respected voice in your space saying something positive about what you're building - all of it works on the same psychological basis. 

Social proof doesn't have to be famous. It just has to be trusted.

50,000 stores is an impressive number. But wide distribution only works if the product is actually selling through those stores consistently. A brand with good numbers in 10,000 locations is better than one spread thin across 50,000 with patchy velocity. 

Retailers notice velocity. A buyer at Tesco or Waitrose are monitoring how fast your product moves off their shelves. A product that sells out consistently in a handful of locations creates pull. The retailer wants more. The consumer who couldn't find it goes looking for it. That kind of demand is built, not bought, and it compounds in a way that simply stacking up distribution agreements never does.

The brands that get this right earn their way into more locations rather than negotiating their way in.

Six years ago, Olivia Ferdi was mixing drinks in her kitchen. Today she's running one of the most valuable female-founded drinks businesses in the world. The big CPG brands (like Coca-Cola or Pepsi, for example) are coming for this category - and when they arrive, the window for independent brands closes fast.

Whatever category you're in, there's a version of that window. The majority of entrepreneurs only recognise it once it's already closing.

If any of this has got you thinking about your own raise, reply to this email or drop me a line at [email protected]. Tell me a bit about the business and I'll give you a straight answer on what your options look like.

Till next time,

James