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Dive Briefing:
- Athletic Brewing has closed a $50 million capital round led by General Atlantic and several other existing investors. The new funding round values the company at about $800 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, roughly double its valuation two years ago.
- The non-alcoholic beer maker plans to use the capital to expand its business, including through the recently announced purchase of a third U.S. brewery and an expanded retail offering.
- Launched in 2018, Athletic is now the largest non-alcoholic brewery in the U.S. It now has over 19% of the non-alcoholic beer market share and is driving 32% of the category’s growth, according to NielsenIQ data cited by the beverage company.
Dive Insight:
Athletic founder Bill Shufeldt initially struggled to convince industry insiders to give his company a chance. At a 2017 conference in Washington, D.C., where 10,000 brewers gathered, Shufeldt failed to have a single meaningful conversation with anyone skeptical of the sector’s prospects and “became the laughing stock of the conversation pretty quickly.”
Seven years later, his non-alcoholic beer company is expanding rapidly and has no trouble attracting investors. Athletic is ranked by the Brewers Association as the 10th largest U.S. craft brewery and the 20th largest U.S. brewery. Dollar sales are up more than 60 percent.
Keurig Dr Pepper is one of Athletic’s major investors. The beverage giant bought a minority stake in Athletic in 2022 with a $50 million investment.
Athletic has invested more than $100 million in beer production since its founding. In June, it purchased a 107,000-square-foot facility in San Diego across from its existing brewery for an undisclosed sum. Once operational, the new brewery will help double Athletic’s production capacity.
The new plant and its recent $50 million investment come as consumers turn to non-alcoholic beers to drink less or avoid the hangovers and high-calorie intake that come with drinking. A recent poll highlighted by the Athletic found that 41% of Americans plan to actively moderate their alcohol consumption by 2024, up 7% from 2023.
“We are thrilled to have General Atlantic as a key growth partner as we significantly expand our West Coast production capacity to meet the growing demand for Athletic beers,” Shufeldt said in a statement. “We are passionate about changing the way modern adults drink and turning critics into believers.”
Athletic is sold in over 50,000 retailers and 25,000 on-premise locations nationwide. But as demand grows both domestically and internationally, Athletic, as an industry leader, will need additional capacity to meet it and stay ahead of its competitors.
Just five years ago, there were no top brands on the market. Today, Blue Moon, Guinness, Corona, Heineken, and Bud are just a few of the brands that have released non-alcoholic and low-alcohol versions of popular beers. Shufelt told Food Dive earlier this year that there are about 150 non-alcoholic American brands competing for shelf space.
