Feisty, the viral mother-daughter drinks startup, has raised £500,000 ($677,000) in its first funding round to revamp its brand and launch new flavours of its plant-based protein sodas.
Clear, sparkling drinks are leading the next wave of the protein craze.
Consumers want options that don’t feel as dense or heavy as protein shakes. Vy Cutting was one of them.
“Protein shakes gave me the ick. I wanted the protein, minus the chalkiness and bloat,” the former Louis Vuitton designer said in a LinkedIn post. “So naturally, I founded a protein soda company.”
Cutting established Feisty, a London-based brand of plant-based protein soda, with her scientist mum, Hong Huynh, who spent three-and-a-half years doing “an ungodly amount of lab work” and witnessing “several painful production fails” to figure out how to make protein fizz.
Feisty has been entirely bootstrapped from the get-go, but now, the female-founded startup has secured its first external investment, raising £500,000 ($677,000) at a post-money valuation of £2.5M ($3.4M).
The round, led by BTomorrow Ventures, builds on the firm’s viral, TikTok-driven growth, and will enable it to relaunch its brand, reformulate recipes, and revamp its flavour lineup. “Partnering with BTomorrow Ventures gives us the operational strength to accelerate our UK footprint,” said Cutting.
Feisty positions itself as ‘Poppi’s first cousin’
Feisty’s protein sodas are made from a base of hydrolysed pea and rice proteins, which are combined with water, concentrated fruit juices, lemon juice powder, gum acacia, malic and citric acid, stevia leaf extract, and salt. They’re free from added sugar and the most common allergens.
They currently come in white peach and nectarine, sour cherry and blackcurrant, and green apple and lime flavours, each delivering 10g of protein with all essential amino acids and just 62-67 calories per 330ml can.
These sodas have already landed on the shelves of premium retailers such as Selfridges, Harrods, and Whole Foods Market, while also being stocked at Soho House and e-grocer Zapp. With the new funds, the company will now have a more focused range of flavours, spanning wild strawberry, white peach, and red cherry.
What sets Feisty apart from others in this fledgling market is its brand positioning. The London-based firm combines “culture-led branding with proprietary food science” via a digital-first strategy.
Cutting’s documentation of the mother-daughter journey on TikTok has generated more than four million organic impressions and driven high-profile activations, including a collaboration with Nike and Isamaya at Selfridges.
The brand’s packaging is stripped back and features bold lettering, while its marketing leans heavily on fashion imagery, bold proclamations and a shift away from traditional fitness circles and gym-bro culture. For instance, one image shows Huynh sporting a T-shirt that reads “MILF”, short for “Man, I Love Feisty”.
“We built Feisty because we were tired of chalky powders and hyper-masculine fitness branding,” Cutting said in a press release. “Positioning Feisty as ‘Poppi’s fit cousin’ allows us to bridge the gap between functional nutrition and everyday taste.”
Can female-founded Feisty claim the ‘hot girl soda’ crown?
The funding round comes amid a boom in protein drinks across the world. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of high-protein drinks on the market grew by 122%. And over the last couple of years, a number of clear, fizzy formats have been popping up in several countries.
Unlike protein shakes, clear beverages are broken down into smaller particles, with the fat, carbs, and other non-protein components all filtered out. The resulting powder can better dissolve in water to create juice-like drinks that are easier on the stomach than protein shakes. The additional processing also helps them digest faster, creating a lighter sensation.
In the UK, Betta Drinks, Nuff, and Zelus are among the brands competing in this category with Feisty. Between 2024 and 2025, over two in five (43%) Brits increased their protein intake. Searches for natural protein are increasing 20% annually. And this year, as GLP-1 drugs take hold of the country, 14% are looking to add more protein to their diets.
But it’s the US that has been the launchpad for this category. Brands like Barebells, Bucked Up, Clean Simple Eats, Applied Nutrition, C4 and Protein Pop have all come out with fizzy protein drinks recently.
But as the whey protein market struggles to keep up with demand, with prices hitting all-time highs across the US and Europe, several companies have instead been betting on plant proteins, which are more sustainable both environmentally and from a supply perspective.
That includes Beyond Meat, which is hoping its new Beyond Immerse line of protein drinks can turn its fortunes around; NNB Nutrition and Axiom Foods; and PlantFusion.
“Protein soda is exploding in the US, fuelled by GLP-1s, the better-for-you soda boom, and protein finally escaping gym-bro culture,” said Cutting. “With Btomorrow Ventures and an incredible group of strategic angels behind us, we’re coming for the first-mover opportunity across the UK and Europe.”
In the UK, only a fifth of businesses are female-led, and over 85% of VC investors are male. It explains why just 2% of financing goes to women-led startups, despite them outperforming companies run by men. So for Feisty to attract investors in a funding-starved alternative protein category is a big deal. Now, Cutting said she will “continue keeping the operations operating while I pump endless vibes into making Feisty the ‘hot girl soda’”.
