Startups

LifeFuels officially put its smart nutrition water bottle on the market

After nearly five years since its founding, the tech company is selling its flagship product which includes a smart water bottle that's connected to its nutrition-tracking app.

LifeFuels' redesigned smart nutrition water bottle. (Photo via @LifeFuels on Twitter)

Reston, Virginia-based LifeFuels, a tech company that created a portable beverage maker connected to a free mobile app, officially put its flagship product on the market last month.

Jonathon Perrelli, founder and CEO of LifeFuels, describes LifeFuels as three companies in one:

  • a hardware manufacturer that designs, engineers and builds the smart nutrition bottles;
  • a beverage company that developed nutrition-packed FuelPods; and
  • a software developer that curates the app providing actionable insights based on a person’s nutrition and hydration.

Perrelli said the idea for LifeFuels came to him in 2006 when his wife was pregnant with their third child. As a busy mother of two and one on the way, she struggled to stay hydrated and take in the appropriate amount of daily nutrition.

“I searched for a product that would make it easy to enhance water with nutrients and track what was consumed, and I was not able to find anything on the market,” Perrelli told Technical.ly. “The idea for LifeFuels was born.”

After launching in 2015, LifeFuels finally made it to market on Sept. 16 with the three above concepts in mind, but all under one umbrella. Prior to this launch, the company previewed a prototype of its smart nutrition water bottle at the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This initial model looks different from the product that’s on the market today, but Perrelli said that was the company’s plan all along.

“We knew early on that we would change the design of that prototype bottle. What we were after at that time was whether or not the market had an interest in a technology-enabled portable beverage maker,” Perrelli said. “The market response was overwhelmingly positive from potential partners in food and beverage, sports and fitness, as well as ecommerce and retail distributors.”

Here’s what that first bottle looked like:

LifeFuels’ first model of its smart nutrition water bottle. (Courtesy photo)

Though this initial model never went to market, LifeFuels did collect a couple hundred pre-sale orders a few years ago, where customers paid $99 to receive the product. Those same buyers were recently sent the new version of the bottle, Perrelli said, which is now valued at $179 per bottle. FuelPods are $11.99 each, and each have 15 servings and come in peach, lemon lime, blackberry acai, kiwi strawberry lemonade, ginger citrus and white grapefruit citrus flavors.

Here’s a look at the updated LifeFuels smart nutrition bottle on the market today:

LifeFuels’ redesigned smart nutrition water bottle. (Photo via @LifeFuels on Twitter)

Though this is Perrelli’s seventh (!) venture as a founder, including government-contracted cybersecurity company SecureForce which was acquired in 2014, he said it’s by far his most challenging.

“Putting water atop of electronics creates a number of issues, as you could imagine,” he said. “Inventing an entirely new system for delivering beverages on the go with the ability for consumers to gain insights from their hydration and nutrition consumption was also quite challenging.”

There’s a team of 50 employees behind LifeFuels, and the company has raised $5.5 million from a seed round in 2017. Last year, LifeFuels also secured an investment and partnership with beverage-giant Keurig Dr Pepper (the Keurig coffee brewer maker) in a Series A deal valued at $20 million, the Washington Business Journal reported, bringing its total venture capital raise to $25.5 million to date.

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

EDA officials are ‘hopeful’ Tech Hubs program will live on under Trump

The 'person of interest' arrested in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting had a ton of tech connections

Northern Virginia defense contractor acquires aerospace startup in $4B deal

From rejection to innovation: How I built a tool to beat AI hiring algorithms at their own game

Technically Media