The Jerry Rice-backed energy drink company G.O.A.T. Fuel has closed a $5 million seed funding round co-led by venture firms Stage 1 Fund and Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners. The company has now raised a total of $12 million since launching in 2020, and intends to use its newly acquired capital to build on sports marketing efforts and expand to nationwide distribution by next year.
G.O.A.T. Fuel: Funding Round Success
“When we launched, the sports world really seemed as if they were waiting for an energy drink they could trust and get behind,” said G.O.A.T. Fuel CEO Jaqui Rice Gold, Rice’s daughter. “There are brands that have been able to dominate in extreme sports, but not football or basketball or maybe even soccer. Mainly that comes down to ingredients, and we made it a focus to make sure our ingredients had integrity and were innovative.”
The solution? Mushrooms. Rice Gold and her husband, Trevion Gold, who now serves as G.O.A.T.’s chief brand officer, were living in Los Angeles in 2019 and had noticed a growing trend of health-conscious mushroom consumption. They went to the Pro Football Hall of Famer with the idea for launching a healthy energy drink. Leaning on connections that Rice, an investor in Muscle Milk, had in the industry, they formulated a drink with cordyceps mushrooms used in traditional Chinese medicine and, ironically, purportedly discovered by goat herders in the Himalayas.
Rice’s network helped G.O.A.T. launch with $3.1 million in funding from individual angel investors, with another $3.9 million raised across the subsequent 18 months. Beyond Rice, early investors included former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and Minnesota Timberwolves owner Marc Lore. The new $5 million seed round, which closed two weeks ago, represents the company’s first institutional capital. Rice Gold said the investment firms’ expertise with building consumer brands is as important as the cash.
“What that does for us is it allows us to tap into an investor network that knows our space very well,” said Rice Gold. “It’s not just about the money, it’s the experience.”
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The beverage company has tripled its revenue year-over-year since 2020, when COVID forced the company to solely sell products online. Rice Gold declined to provide exact figures, but she said G.O.A.T. now generates eight figures in total revenue, up from less than $1 million. The beverage startup has since partnered with a network of regional distributors and now has retail deals with Publix, Target and Walmart, among others, and at 24 Hour Fitness locations. Rice Gold said the company plans to leverage its newly raised capital to secure full national distribution by 2024 and finance mainstream sports sponsorships for the brand, the official energy drink of the L.A. Lakers.
