Seeking the Sublime and Unexpected

Hey there, I’m Tonya, co-founder and CEO of Mother Kombucha. We gave birth to Mother Kombucha almost a decade ago, in the early days of St. Pete’s radical transformation into a creative and cultural mecca of the Southeast. As St. Pete exploded, Mother Kombucha did too: the seed that was planted when a friend asked me if I could brew kombucha for her new juice bar has grown into a $3.6MM/year business. Our distinctive elixir-like beverages are served in 1,500 locations in the Southeast, from the taps of local taquerias to the shelves of Whole Foods, Publix and Costco. But we’ve always stayed true to our roots as a community-driven enterprise, and we’re genuinely thrilled to launch our first crowd-funding campaign that allows us to invite supporters to be part of the next wave of Mother Kombucha’s growth.

Our dream for Mother Kombucha has always been to create sublime drinking experiences that are artful and enlivening. With a sense of wonder and curiosity, we’ve experimented with botanicals and fermentation processes to conjure up deeply distinctive drinks, from cocktail-inspired elixirs like Lavender Mojito to a throwback to a classic kid’s soda in Goji Grape. And behind these crave-worthy flavor profiles is a product that’s truly distinctive in its category. We are committed to engineering a kombucha that doesn't taste like vinegar and is light and refreshing for our tropical climate, all while being low in sugar and brimming with B vitamins. We believe that kombucha can be good for you and taste great too!

As we continue our evolution from a St. Pete upstart to a dominant regional brand, we’d love you to be a part of the Mother Kombucha adventure. Whether you’re a Mother Kombucha fan who wants to take a first foray into crowdfunding or an experienced investor looking for a compelling opportunity in a growing market, we’d love to have you along for the journey.

Welcome to the Mothership!

The Mother Kombucha production story begins in 2014 in 400 square feet of shared kitchen space. Our little kombucha innovation lab allowed us to make just enough draft kombucha to sell at local farmers markets and to some of our favorite independent spots around St Pete and Tampa. Before long we were bursting at the seams. In 2015 we built our first brewery, allowing us to increase production and begin bottling. Soon we were delivering our kombucha to restaurants, cafes and independent retailers across the Tampa Bay area. In 2018 we moved into our current facility, The Mothership, creating the capacity and infrastructure to significantly ramp up our growth. That year we launched with 260 Publix Super Market locations and 18 months later we were expanded across the state to 900 stores where we are the top performing regional brand with double digit year-over-year growth. In 2019 we launched in all Florida Whole Foods Market locations where we are one of the top three performing brands and the key contributor of growth to the category. In January 2023 we had our first rotation with Costco in all Florida locations and another rotation is planned this year. Mother Kombucha is currently available in over 1200 retail locations and hundreds of restaurants, bars, gyms, and cafes.  

Kombucha Benefits for a New Audience

Agua Bucha was created from our conversations with our fans. Some didn’t like fermented flavor profiles, some limited their intake because of the sugar or the price point. After 3 years of R&D we created a kombucha-powered sparkling water that delivers powerful kombucha benefits like 2200% RDA of B12 and gut-healthy organic acids all while drinking like a refreshing sparkling water. With just 4 calories and 1 gram of sugar, Agua Bucha can be enjoyed all day long. And since it's available in cans and shelf stable, it's ready for outdoor adventures. Agua Bucha is currently available in all Florida Whole Foods Markets, 200 Publix Super Markets, Amazon and launching on Thrive Market. 

Doing Good Is Good For Business

We believe in pursuit of a triple bottom line of people, planet and profits and B Corp Certification is one way of showing our community stakeholders exactly how much this means to us. Being a B Corp means being part of the change we want to see and continuing to improve our positive impact on our community and the planet as we grow. Some of our efforts include: 100% food waste composting with local community gardens, a robust recycling program, second chance hiring, employee paid time off for volunteer work and solar panel assisted power. We've developed strong non-profit community relationships to support and build awareness in the pillars of environmental sustainability, food insecurity and domestic violence. 

Mother Kombucha is a WBENC certified women-owned enterprise and our products are certified organic, vegan and kosher.

Sustainable Growth and Strong Margins

In our pursuit of building a sustainable business we have focused on growing velocities over growing doors. As a result, we have a strong grasp of our performance and opportunities in key retailers and an understanding of our super fans. We have some of the highest off-promotion sales amongst competitors in our largest retailers, indicating strong brand loyalty in the category. This level of focus and restraint has also resulted in strong retail account relationships and a clear roadmap to expanding our reach with both retailers and fans.

Grow Where You're Planted

With excellent unit economics and bottom-of-funnel marketing we were EBITDA positive in 2021 and have a clear path to EBITDA positive profitability in 2023 and beyond. We’ve built a hyper-focused regional growth plan that harnesses the power of community by meeting our superfans where they work and play. 

Here's Where You Come In

Mother Kombucha is primed for its next leap forward. We've grown organically, through a lot of bootstrapping and the angel investment of early believers. With focus and restraint we have stayed intentionally lean through almost a decade and we are incredibly excited to have reached the point of launching our next phase of growth. The capital from this funding round will be used to build out our sales team, invest in close-to-sale marketing efforts and provide working capital to increase inventory for new retailer launches and expansions.

Whether you're a longtime fan of Mother or just finding out about us, we would be honored to have you join us. Early bird investors (first $150,000) get a 20% discount on valuation cap, making your investment go that much further upon equity conversion. Make sure to check out our perks (far right under the "invest" button in the investment terms) - we've brewed up a variety of fun ways to say thanks for joining team MK.

Cheers!