Kitchen experiment becomes $13m non-alcoholic cocktail sensation

Melbourne entrepreneur David Andrew has leveraged the popularity of his non-alcoholic cocktail brand into one of the year’s most successful crowd-funding campaigns.

Naked Life Non-Alcoholic Spirits founder David Andrew.

David Andrew has just raised $3m in a crowd-funding campaign for his wildly successful non-alcoholic cocktail brand which started as an experiment in his kitchen.

His Naked Life Non-Alcoholic Spirits has notched up one of the biggest equity crowd-funding raises this year, with 935 investors pledging just shy of $3m with the offer closing on Thursday night.

Along the way it broke the previous record for the largest food and beverage equity crowd-funding raise, which was set by Old Young’s distillery which reached $2.7m earlier this year.

Both were on the Birchal crowd-funding platform.

Over the past three year’s Naked Life has cranked up its revenue from $400,000 a year to almost $13m, ranking it as the country’s top selling non-alcoholic cocktail brand.

The idea for Naked Life was born from an experiment in Mr Andrew’s kitchen in 2016 after the former business analyst decided to give up sugar as part of a health kick.

He was no fan of the softdrinks on the market so decided to create his own sugar-free sodas, iced teas and tonics. They were launched with moderate success but then he saw a gap in the market for low calorie cocktails and in 2020 the brand really took off.

“Our sales went nuts - we had the right product at the right time,” he said. “Naked Life was riding Australia’s post-lockdown sobriety wave. Woolworths trialled us with four cocktails in five stores initially. Four weeks later that grew to 50 stores, which quickly grew to 800 stores within six months. We now have 15 products across Coles and Woolworths stores around Australia. We keep pinching ourselves because our little Aussie start-up is now outselling brands like Heineken & Gordons.”

The brand is also sold in more than 300 bars and restaurants.

“We’ve signed multiyear deals that will see Naked Life served at major sporting events and live stadium tours,” Mr Andrew said.

“And international expansion has already started to our friends across the ditch.”

Funds raised will go towards accelerating the company’s growth across all its markets.

“Our company wants to give every Australian a better option than lemon lime and bitters when they’re out drinking with their mates, and the money raised will help widen our reach so more people can live a healthier life without feeling left out,” said Mr Andrew said.