There’s a certain irony in a world that guzzles caffeine to stay awake but forgets how to chill. Enter Recess, the brand teaching the overstimulated masses how to hit pause, and they just dropped a $30M Series B that proves calm is the new hustle.
Founded in 2017 by Benjamin Witte, Recess was built on a simple thesis: relaxation shouldn’t be a luxury product. Witte isn’t your typical CPG suit, he’s a tech-sector transplant from Silicon Valley who traded ad algorithms for adaptogens. After years leading mobile strategy at AdRoll, he saw the market chasing speed while consumers quietly craved balance. That tension became his business plan.
Fast-forward to now: Recess is sitting pretty in 15K+ stores, from Target and Kroger to Whole Foods and CVS, while still owning the digital shelf as Amazon’s top alcohol-alt brand. More than 95% of its revenue flows from Recess Mood, those magnesium L-threonate-infused sparkling waters that took the anxiety out of afternoon meetings, and its Zero Proof Mocktails line is riding the sober-curious wave harder than a Saturday night Uber surge.
CAVU Consumer Partners led the round, marking its first major beverage play since Poppi’s $1.95B exit to Pepsi earlier this year. Joining them were Rocana, Midnight Ventures, Torch Capital, Doehler Ventures, KAS Venture Partners, Vanquish, S2G Ventures, and Craig Kallman of Atlantic Records fame, a lineup that reads more like a festival roster than a cap table.
Recess is now co-piloted by Benjamin Witte and beverage veteran Kyle Thomas, whose résumé stretches from Coca-Cola’s emerging brands unit to scaling C4 Energy at Nutrabolt from tens of M to nearly $1B. Add Ryan McAulay, fresh off Liquid Death, to lead field sales, and you’ve got a team that knows how to turn niche beverages into cultural movements.
The $30M infusion is fuel for scale: hiring, retail expansion, marketing muscle, and the kind of commercial infrastructure that turns a cool brand into a category-defining company. The functional beverage space is exploding, projected to double to nearly $280B by 2030, and Recess is quietly building the counterweight to the $25B energy drink empire built on adrenaline.
As CAVU’s Jared Jacobs put it, “There’s a $25B+ energy market built on stimulation. We believe there needs to be a counterweight built on relaxation.” That’s not a tagline, it’s a cultural correction. Recess isn’t just selling drinks; it’s bottling balance for an era that forgot what that feels like.
