First Poppi at $2B. Now Olipop valued at $1.85B. Who’s Building — and Who’s Buying — the Next Billion-Dollar Soda Brand?

Poppi popped off the market — and the entire beverage world is still fizzing. The prebiotic soda darling was acquired for nearly $2 billion by PepsiCo, cementing functional soda as more than a niche — it’s now a high-stakes category. The ripple effects? Massive.

Poppi’s rise didn’t just end in a billion-dollar exit — it set off a chain reaction. Even Coca-Cola, one of the world’s biggest beverage giants, has jumped in with its own gut-health soda line, Simply Pop.

So what does this mean for the rest of the space? Who might be next? And how can indie brands survive the soda wars 2.0?

Let’s dive in.

A Fizzing Functional Soda Market

The global functional soda market is now valued around $5–6 billion and climbing. In the U.S., the subset of prebiotic and probiotic sodas has surged to roughly $820 million in annual retail sales.

That’s still only about 2% of the $42+ billion U.S. soft drink market, but notably this segment “doubled in size over the past year”. In other words, functional soda is no longer an LA health store curiosity – it’s entering the mainstream fast.

Brands to Watch in Functional Soda

A wave of brands is innovating with new flavors, ingredients, and health claims. Here’s a shortlist of notable emerging players making a splash:

• Olipop – A leader of the pack, Olipop is a high-fiber, low-sugar prebiotic soda brand often mentioned in the same breath as Poppi. Olipop saw over $400 million in sales in 2024 and in early 2025 raised $50M in Series C funding at a $1.85B valuation. Investors include J.P. Morgan’s growth fund, and the brand claims to have reached profitability in 2024.

• Culture Pop – Culture Pop is a probiotic soda packed with live cultures. Founded in 2019 by Tom First, this soda uses real fruit juice and spices for flavor. The brand closed a $21M Series B round in 2024 led by Enlightened Hospitality (Danny Meyer’s fund) with additional backing from former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. It followed up with another $15M in 2025, fueling expanded marketing and retail growth.

• wildwonder – A California startup founded in 2020 by Rosa Li, wildwonder blends East and West in a prebiotic + probiotic sparkling drink inspired by Li’s Chinese grandmother’s herbal tonics. After hustling to get into 100+ independent retailers in its first year, the brand caught attention on Shark Tank. It didn’t land a deal on air, but went on to raise about $3M to date and continue growing online and in West Coast.

• De La Calle – Spanish for “from the street”, De La Calle brings a twist of Latin American tradition, turning tepache into the next trendy soda. It ferments organic pineapples with turbinado sugar and regional spices, yielding a tangy-sweet fizzy soda that’s low in sugar and <40 calories. It raised $24M in growth funding to date to expand production and roll out new exotic flavors.

Who Will Scoop Up the Next Breakout?

With one major investor (PepsiCo) off the table, industry watchers are speculating on who might acquire the next functional soda star. The obvious candidate is Coca-Cola. If Coke wants a proven brand in this space, a hefty offer to Olipop may be on the horizon. However as far as we see for now, they are focused on growing in the space internally… (more details below).