I’ll defend the $700M fizzy water • TechCrunch

Foolish season is out in enterprise capital land.

Right now buyers and founders alike will bore your ears off with notes about incremental money circulate positivity and their timeline to adjusted EBITDA profitability.

Lame.

Regardless of the overall boringness of at the moment’s enterprise capital panorama, replete with conservative valuations, falling deal sizes, and clucking buyers sitting atop a mountain of capital, we discovered at the moment that at the very least some people are having enjoyable.

Enter Liquid Loss of life, a direct-to-consumer water firm that simply raised a $70 million spherical at a $700 million valuation, per Bloomberg reporting. The transaction makes Liquid Loss of life 70% of a unicorn, which is rattling spectacular given the state of most DTC corporations — see right here — that we will observe on the general public market exchanges.

Why the large price ticket? As a result of water is a progress enterprise, child! Bloomberg’s Katie Roof — a former TechCruncher — writes that the corporate is “on observe for $130 million in income this 12 months,” up from $45 million value of prime line final 12 months. That’s the kind of progress that buyers covet.

Liquid Loss of life has just a few issues going for it that make the deal considerably cheap from my perspective. Certain, it’s simple to dunk on a $700 million water startup when cheaper options abound; different fizzy water manufacturers, making your individual bubbly, or consuming straight faucet water like a peasant are all choices.