Sitting in his Manhattan office, where hot pink, purple and orange cans of his soda brand Poppi are tacked to the wall like artwork, Rohan Oza explains how, for the past 20 years, he’s been searching for the perfect soft drink.
“Americans are looking for the brands of tomorrow,” says the 53-year-old Oza, cofounder of Los Angeles–based private equity firm Cavu Consumer Partners, who was the chairman of prebiotic soda Poppi and its single largest individual shareholder when Pepsi acquired it in May for $1.9 billion. “Thirty years from now, Poppi is going to be the soda for my kids.”
The Poppi deal is Oza’s biggest exit yet, but it’s far from his first. He played a key role in some of the largest beverage acquisitions of the past two decades, including Vitaminwater and Smartwater ($4.1 billion in 2007) as well as Bai, an antioxidant-infused water that sold for $1.7 billion in 2016. Oza’s role in those deals was a cross between hitmaker and matchmaker, having brought in 50 Cent (Vitaminwater), Jennifer Aniston (Smartwater) and Justin Timberlake (Bai) through equity deals that saw the celebrities driving sales.
“When Rohan and I did the Vitaminwater deal, it became the blueprint that set the tone for future equity ownership partnerships,” says Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. “We proved that celebrities could bet on themselves and win big—and that’s exactly what he continues to do.”
For Oza, the path to Poppi came through one of his frequent appearances on ABC’s Shark Tank. On a 2018 episode, Oza took a 25% stake in the Austin, Texas–based beverage brand founded by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Stephen and Allison Ellsworth for $400,000. (The Ellsworths owned an estimated 12% of Poppi at the time of the Pepsi sale, worth about $150 million post-tax.)
Then Oza changed everything. He rebranded Mother Beverage, as the Ellsworths had named it, as Poppi. The liquid went from an apple cider vinegar drink to a prebiotic soda, and the packaging changed from glass to cans. The branding morphed from farmer’s-market artisanal to bright, Millennial-friendly colors.
Leading up to Pepsi’s acquisition at a 3.3-times-revenue multiple, Forbes estimates that Oza owned about 21% of Poppi and Cavu owned another 37%. That netted him some $250 million (post-tax) directly from the sale and another roughly $50 million through Cavu. Those proceeds—in addition to exits reinvested and his 50% stake in Cavu—add up to an estimated net worth of roughly $500 million.
Such success, Oza says, represents his own American Dream. An immigrant from Zambia who came to the U.S. in 1995 and then got an MBA at the University of Michigan, he now lives in Miami and shuttles between there, the main Cavu office in Los Angeles and its other space in New York, as well as his homes at the Yellowstone Club in Montana and on the island of Barbuda.
“There’s no consumer audience in the world that is willing to embrace new brands as rapidly as Americans are,” Oza says. “I came here with a dream. It’s full circle.”
Growing up in Livingstone, Zambia, Oza was a devout soda drinker. “I used to line all the cans up on my shelf like it was a badge of honor,” he recalls. After graduating from the United Kingdom’s University of Nottingham, Oza started working for candy maker Mars on its Snickers brand in 1992. But his boss took him off the management track, telling the then-22-year-old he was “not sure that marketing is your thing.”
Oza returned to Zambia defeated, before heading to Michigan. “If you truly believe, you’ve got to double down and power through it,” he says.
His next chance came in Atlanta, where he worked at Coca-Cola marketing Sprite and later Powerade, his first time leading a brand. The turnaround he engineered—from Powerade sales declining 15% the year before he took over in 2001 to growing 35% the next year—got him noticed by Vitaminwater, which had $35 million in revenue.
As Vitaminwater’s new CMO, he called 50 Cent to see if he might promote the beverage. The rap star wanted his own flavor; Formula 50’s debut in 2004 doubled sales to $160 million within a year. 50 Cent received an estimated 2% ownership stake.
By 2007, revenue hit $400 million. That year, its parent company, New York–based Glaceau (including sister brand Smartwater) sold in the biggest-ever nonalcoholic beverage brand acquisition at the time. 50 Cent made an estimated $100 million, setting off a wave of celebrity dealmaking: “Suddenly everyone was like, ‘I want the 50 deal.’ ”
Oza had a small piece of equity, too, so now he had money to invest. In 2010, he put $1 million into Hamilton, New Jersey–based Bai Brands, a fruit-flavored water which had just $2 million in revenue. Seven years—and one Justin Timberlake promotion deal—later, it was acquired for $1.7 billion by Keurig Dr Pepper. Oza netted an estimated $100 million.
At Bai, he met Brett Thomas, who wanted to start a private equity fund. Calling their firm Cavu (after the aviation acronym for good flying conditions, “ceiling and visibility unlimited”), they launched in 2015 with expertise in branding, packaging, direct-to-consumer, social media and celebrities.
As a Shark, Oza passed on several beverage deals (“I didn’t feel the why”) before the Ellsworths pitched Mother Beverage in June 2018 and he tasted their orange soda. “This is the product I’ve been looking for,” Oza recalls thinking. “Package, wrong. Brand, wrong. Everything is wrong, basically. But this liquid, that’s it.”
He immediately shut down the Ellsworths’ $600,000 (annual revenue) business for a two-year overhaul, which meant relaunching in March 2020 into the teeth of the pandemic, when grocers were more interested in stocking up on toilet paper than soft drinks. Yet Poppi, as the brand was now renamed, found traction among influencers stuck at home. By year’s end, sales were $4 million in total.
After the cans hit shelves at Kroger, Publix and Target stores, 2021 ended with sales of $20 million. Cavu and Oza reinvested as he secured celebrity investors including actress Olivia Munn and pop duo the Chainsmokers.
In 2022, Stephen Ellsworth transitioned from CEO to chief product officer, and with industry veteran Chris Hall now helming the company, Poppi expanded to locations of Albertsons, Stop & Shop and Costco. By 2023, sales of the better-for-you soda surpassed $200 million.
Oza is a hands-on investor. He pushed Cavu to lend Poppi $10 million for its 2024 Super Bowl commercial after finding an open slot just three days before the game. “When he gets fixated on what we need to do, there’s no stopping,” Hall says.
Two months later, Oza scored a distribution deal at all 4,600 U.S. Walmart stores carving out space where Poppi and its competitors would be, not next to Coke and Pepsi. “He wows celebrities the same way he wows retail buyers,” says Jeff Rubenstein, who interned for Oza at Coca-Cola 25 years ago and worked for several Oza-backed brands before becoming Poppi’s chief growth officer.
In 2024, Poppi’s revenue grew 150% to $500 million, and the acquisition offers rolled in. Oza says he walked away from at least three deals before Pepsi. “We did not want to partner with someone where we made money, but the brand wasn’t there many years later,” he says.
Under Pepsi, Poppi can tap into one of the world’s biggest distribution networks. The brand will sell at 100,000 locations by the end of December.
Online sales have also increased. Poppi is the top-selling soda on Amazon, outpacing even Coke and Pepsi. The next three years are critical. If Poppi can keep growing, Oza, Cavu and the Ellsworths will benefit—there’s another $300 million in potential earn-out. So far, it’s looking good: Weekly sales in Walmart this year have been 20-fold higher than 12 months ago.
Meanwhile, Oza is already focused on his next exits. On the horizon is Skinny Dipped, his attempt to modernize confectionery, on track to surpass $100 million in revenue this year. Oza and Cavu own just under 40%. And Jennifer Garner’s organic baby food brand, Once Upon a Farm, which got a Cavu-led brand refresh in 2021, reportedly filed to go public at a valuation around $1 billion.
Once Upon a Farm cofounder and CEO John Foraker recalls the first time he met Oza at a restaurant in 2018. Oza ordered a drink and sent it back three times before it came out to his liking. “I remember seeing that and thinking, ‘This guy has a vision and high standards, and he will not settle for anything less than stellar execution against the vision,’ ” Foraker says. “He also does not care what other people think about that pursuit of perfection.”