Minnesota startup Huxley prioritizes taste to break into macho energy drink market

When someone tries a Huxley energy drink for the first time, founder Simon Solis-Cohen watches for the reaction.

“Their eyes widen a little bit, and they’re like, ‘That actually tastes good,’” he said. “That starts the conversation.”

And not long after tasting a free sample and hearing from the creator, shoppers who usually never have energy drinks on their grocery list are suddenly lifting a whole case of them into their oversized Costco carts.

This is how Minneapolis-based Huxley plans to become the next billion-dollar energy drink. That and its recipe using real fruit juices.

“In energy drinks, I don’t see people talk about taste as the leading reason to buy it,” Solis-Cohen said. “It’s really selling function first. And I get it, people want that boost of caffeine. But for us, let’s just start with, ‘This tastes delicious.’”

Three brands — Red Bull, Monster and the rapidly rising Celsius — sell nearly 80% of all energy drinks in the U.S., according to Circana.

Huxley’s gambit is to join those billion-dollar behemoths, not beat them, by appealing to a wider audience.

“If you love that brand you’re drinking today, great, keep drinking it,” Solis-Cohen said. “If you want something different, we’re going to provide, for the first time at scale, a natural, healthier, better-tasting option.”

Huxley checks a lot of the “function” boxes many consumers are looking for in energy beverages: lower caffeine (derived from “superfruit” cascara coffee cherries), a few grams of organic cane sugar, electrolytes and L-theanine (an amino acid that helps ease the highs and lows of caffeine consumption).

But the biggest selling point, Solis-Cohen said, is flavor.

“You can have the healthiest product out there,” he said, “but if it doesn’t taste good, you’re not going to get that repeat purchase.”

Young adults, mostly young men, make up a majority of energy drink sales. Advertising and packaging have long trended macho, and that’s no niche market, with nearly $24 billion in retail sales in the past year.

But in recent years, new entrants have started growing the market.

“The energy drinks industry has previously struggled to expand beyond a predominantly male consumer base. But this appears to be changing,” according to an industry report from Mintel. “Simple benefits such as hydration and natural ingredients are highly sought after by consumers.”

Solis-Cohen and his wife moved to Minnesota from California’s Napa Valley in 2018. Wildfires had recently forced them to evacuate, and they wanted a change, he said.

“I would have never dreamed of living in Minnesota growing up. Now this is home,” said the 34-year-old Philadelphia native. “Here, I feel this sense of pride that we are this powerhouse of Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar brands. It’s amazing that we have the infrastructure and culture to create those companies and to run those companies here.”

Huxley launched just more than a year ago after Solis-Cohen sold his marketing agency. The former fine-dining chef and sommelier spent just a few months developing the brand — with a name that came from the passing mention of “Brave New World” author Aldous Huxley — before debuting in March 2024.

Within a year, Huxley landed at local co-ops and grocers, eventually hitting the shelves of Minneapolis-based retail giant Target. Cans of Huxley are at more than 300 different stores around the Midwest and increasingly around the country.

Solis-Cohen has been able to reinvest in the business thanks to a 50% gross profit margin and a recent seed funding round. He plans to grow region by region in the coming years.

“We don’t have the financing that we could be a national brand overnight,” he said. “So we’re going to start in the heartland and build up that momentum here.”

Already, Huxley has become a fast favorite for industry insiders. Last month, the brand won a pitch slam for Naturally Minnesota, a nonprofit helping healthy food and drink startups in the state. Huxley also took home another award at a wholesaler trade show last week.

“He’s facing a big category with massive investments and massive brand launches,” said Doug Kinneberg, a judge at the Naturally Minnesota event. “It’s about getting a piece of a big and rapidly growing category with his ingredient story and taste and natural elements.”

At the Eden Prairie Costco earlier this month, a diverse group of shoppers stopped by a Huxley display where the brand’s small staff offered samples.

“If you had a traditional energy drink brand doing a sampling, you wouldn’t have the same people walking up,” Solis-Cohen said. “It’s attracting people in a different way.”

Solis-Cohen founded Huxley based on his own experience with high-octane, artificially flavored energy drinks and caffeine sensitivity.

“If I feel this way, there’s got to be other people who feel this way,” he said, which is why he picked 90 milligrams of caffeine, about a cup of coffee, for Huxley.

This summer, Costco locations around Minnesota and Chicago will feature Huxley as its founder hopes to prove out his thesis.

Pointing to a nearby display of Olipop and Poppi sodas during his Eden Prairie Costco stop, Solis-Cohen said the success of those brands inspired his Huxley.

“What they’ve done with the soda category is obviously transformational,” he said. “We have a similar idea and vision. And anyone who’s buying those sodas could also buy this, right?”