Honey Birdette founder Eloise Monaghan snaps up Found Bubbly stake

Fresh from the sale of Honey Birdette to Playboy, founder Eloise Monaghan has acquired a circa $10m stake in an Aussie sparkling water brand.

Fresh from pocketing $66m from the sale of Honey Birdette to Playboy-owner PLBY Group, founder Eloise Monaghan is now hoping to add a little spice to the water industry.

The founder of luxury lingerie and sex toy company has acquired a circa $10m stake in Found Bubbly, a Canberra-based sparkling water brand owned by businessmen Onur Kece and Mark De Luca.

The brand founded over 10 years ago has recently rebranded into a subscription only model targeting mid to high net worth females. It is also eyeing a push into the US market similar to Honey Birdette.

Known for drinking upwards of 20 sparkling water cans a day, Ms Monaghan said the investment made perfect sense to due many similarities between Found Bubbly and Honey Birdette.

“The product what I describe as fashionable water and appeals to the same clientele who shops at Honey Birdette,” she said.

“It is a side project for me an I am there to give the boys advice as they push into the US market following a rebranding.”

Monaghan sold Honey Birdette to Playboy in June.

The businesswoman added that her wife Natalie’s dislike of plain water also drove her into making the investment.

“My wife doesn’t drink water unless it’s flavoured, but one day she picked up one of the Found products and loved it, so I thought there’s something in this,” she said.

Found Bubbly is bottled from a spring in Turkey and is also looking at expanding into alcohol. Mr Kece said Found Bubbly was well placed for success with online transactions for consumer packaged goods purchases having boomed during Covid.

“We make it simple to have quality sparkling water delivered to your doorstep, and that will always outweigh the retail experience of the supermarket aisles.”

Ms Monaghan, who has been based in Los Angeles has stayed on with Honey Birdette as its creative director following the PLBY Group purchase.

Currently she is overseeing the brand’s North American expansion and plotting a European rollout of the brand after the launch of the lingerie brand’s websites in France and Germany.

Ms Monaghan said Honey Birdette’s expansion will see the lingerie outlet have a presence in Miami from January, as well as a second store in Las Vegas and a lease on a large site in Soho in New York is about to be signed.

“The American market has just exploded for Honey Birdette, the UK and Europe is kicking along at the moment and we are currently looking at how we grow further in that region.”