⚡ How is this Start-Up Pioneering Hydration with a Cactus?
Morning Innovators ⚡ In less than 5 minutes, we’ll cover…
🥳 The best funding opportunities, events and jobs in the Start-Up world this week
📰 This week’s biggest news stories in the Start-Up world
🌵 How is this Start-Up changing the hydration game with a prickly pear?
🛍 How you can go viral by getting consumers to create your packaging for you
📣 A tool that helps you get PR with ease
✨ Last weeks most clicked link was this one (again) that sends Pre-Seed to Series A stage companies to pitch for up to £1,000,000 in funding.
Happy hustling,
Rich
🎤 Events/Opportunities
🍒 Cherry Ventures have raised a new $500m fund to support European Founders across the globe, get in touch with the team here!
🩺 Nina Capital have raised a new €50m fund to invest in early stage HealthTech companies, pitch the team here!
🧑💻 Ulu Ventures have just raised a $208m fund to invest in Pre-Seed/Seed stage Software and Internet Start-Ups, you can pitch here!
💼 Start-Up Jobs
📊 Business Development Representative, Fullview
📱 Content Marketing, Reedsy
👷 Senior Backend Engineer, Orkestro
💳 Klarna CEO touts web3 ambitions ahead of IPO Sifted
🧾 Stripe mulls employee shareholder sale at $85bn+ valuation TechCrunch
🤖 Elon Musk-led team submits $97.4bn bid for OpenAI TechCrunch
💰 ‘We’ll follow that quickly’: UK AI minister on Macron’s €109bn AI plan. UKTN
Carta is a platform that helps people manage equity, build businesses and invest in the companies of tomorrow. Our mission is to unlock the power of equity ownership for more people in more places. Carta is trusted by more than 40,000 companies, over 8,000 investment funds and a million employees for cap table management, venture capital solutions and more. In the UK, we support founders who are raising money through SEIS/EIS, helping with Advance Assurance, round modelling and more. To find out more, take a look at their website, or get in touch with jack.lemon@carta.com.
Cadbury are a ridiculously big company, but they still perform marketing stunts as if they’re just starting out. The latest trick they had up their sleeve might be their best one yet.
The latest version of packaging for their iconic chocolate bars has spread all over the internet and has got people talking across the Globe. They’ve created sections on the packaging allocating bits of chocolate to those who have earned it. You presented the slides? You deserve the biggest share! You just contributed a ‘cheers all’ at the end? Tiny piece for you!
This has got people flocking to go and buy these chocolate bars to make a point to friends and family, but has also got people creating their own versions on social media.
How could you get people creating their own version of your packaging on social media?
Each week we highlight our favourite tools - either something we’ve been using in our businesses, or tools that our innovator community have recommended.
Soapbox was launched to help Founders and Start-Ups – whatever their stage, sector or surrounding “hype” – publish a golden source of their venture funding round online in a digestible format which they are proud to share.
Cacto Drinks: Pioneering Hydration with the Power of Prickly Pear 🌵
Cacto is an award-winning cactus water drink, crafted from the prickly pear cactus fruit (Opuntia Ficus). It holds the distinction of being the UK’s first and only cactus water brand to use real prickly pear juice - not concentrate. Cacto is all about great taste, real ingredients, and a sustainable mission: providing consumers with a refreshing, healthy drink that’s good for both the body and the planet.
But Cacto is more than just a beverage - it’s a brand for mavericks, pioneers, connoisseurs, and adventurous spirits. Those who constantly seek new, exciting, and meaningful discoveries will find a kindred spirit in Cacto.
The Journey of a Solo Founder: How Cacto Was Born
Cacto is the brainchild of a solo determined founder, Sam. And the journey to launching the brand wasn’t conventional - it started almost by accident.
Sam’s original idea wasn’t to create a cactus water company. Instead, he set out to develop a sports recovery drink after a failed attempt at a cricket career. (Although, as he jokes, he became better known for drinking pints than scoring runs.) A conversation with his brother about water scarcity led him to discover the prickly pear cactus—an incredible plant that thrives in arid, unfarmable land with zero irrigation.
This discovery sparked an obsession. Sam dedicated himself to learning everything he could about prickly pear fruit - its nutritional benefits, cultivation, and even its ancient medicinal uses. He found that:
- Prickly pears need no water irrigation to grow, making them a sustainable agricultural marvel.
- The fruit was ideal for sports recovery and scientifically proven to reduce hangover symptoms.
- It had a unique, delicious taste unlike anything else on the market.
- It was low in calories and sugar, but packed with magnesium, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory properties - making it nutritionally superior to most fruits.
Determined to create something extraordinary, Sam sourced fresh prickly pear fruit in 2020, juiced them by hand, and, after painfully removing the many thorns embedded in his fingers, tasted it for the first time.
His verdict? "THE MOST DELICIOUS FRUIT I've ever tasted."
Shortly after, Cacto was officially registered as a company in February 2020.
For the next two years, Sam was completely absorbed in perfecting the recipe, studying the industry, and refining the brand’s mission. His passion for sustainability led Cacto to become a charity partner of Water.org, a global organisation working to combat water scarcity.
Sam's goal wasn’t just to create a drink, it was to bring the incredible taste and benefits of prickly pear to the world while supporting a greater cause.
The Hustle: Getting the First Customers the Hard Way
Cacto’s launch was pure hustle.
With no car and limited funds, Sam loaded up a backpack with Cacto cans and hit the streets of Bristol and Bath, pitching to independent cafés, bars, and shops. For 12+ hours a day, he travelled by bus and on foot, introducing people to cactus water and offering samples.
The reactions? Priceless.
Many had never even heard of cactus water before, let alone prickly pear juice. The first version of Cacto’s recipe wasn’t perfect and didn’t immediately win everyone over. But through sheer persistence, Sam sold 5,000 cans door-to-door, using the revenue to refine the flavour, improve branding, and enhance the product.
The key lesson? You don’t need big marketing budgets to get started.
Scaling Up: Breaking Barriers in the Drinks Industry
Once Cacto had proven demand, the next challenge was scaling.
The drinks industry, as Sam quickly discovered, is notoriously difficult to break into. It operates on a chicken-and-egg model:
- Retailers wanted Cacto to have a distributor before stocking it.
- But distributors wouldn’t take Cacto unless it was already in at least 50 stores.
To break through these barriers, Sam focused on three key strategies:
- Letting the taste speak for itself – Offering free samples to retailers helped them realise that Cacto was something special.
- Building strong customer relationships – Rather than constantly chasing new stockists, he focused on supporting existing ones, ensuring they had everything needed to boost sales.
- Educating retailers – By explaining the uniqueness of prickly pear and its sustainability benefits, Sam turned store owners into brand ambassadors.
The results? Higher sales rates and repeat customers. Once people tried Cacto, they kept coming back.
Funding the Dream: Bootstrapping and Pitching Competitions
Cacto’s growth has been fuelled by savings and pitch competitions.
Despite being told that the drinks industry required “a ton of money and connections”, Sam ignored the doubters and found creative ways to raise funds.
One of the most effective? Pitching competitions.
With a love for storytelling and an infectious enthusiasm for prickly pear, Sam has won around £30,000 in funding purely by pitching Cacto’s mission to investors and competition panels.
Now, the brand is looking to raise funding under SEIS and welcomes investors who think differently, embrace challenges, and want to be part of the future of hydration.
Biggest Challenges and Lessons Learnt
Building a drinks brand from the ground up hasn’t been easy. Some of the biggest hurdles Cacto has faced include:
- Navigating the industry's gatekeepers – Overcoming the distributor-retailer deadlock took persistence and innovative thinking.
- Early recipe and branding missteps – Getting the taste and packaging right required real-world customer feedback.
- Educating consumers on a new product category – Since cactus water wasn’t widely known, a big part of scaling involved spreading awareness and sparking curiosity.
Next week I’ll be highlighting another awesome Start-Up, as well as sharing all the usuals including funding opportunities, Start-Up news, plus plenty of awesome tips, tricks and tools.
P.S. Connect with me on LinkedIn…
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