Neutonic has announced it’s raised $6m to turbocharge its retail expansion: including backing from Alan Barrett, alongside investors including Ollie Marchon and Ross Edgley in the UK, and Dan Martell and Cody Sanchez in the US. Jay Parker (Gym King founder) also joins the company as a special advisor.
The nootropic drinks and supplements brand was founded in 2023 by James Smith, one of the UK’s most recognised fitness entrepreneurs, and Chris Williamson, host of the Modern Wisdom podcast (currently #8 worldwide with more than a billion downloads).
Since launch, the business has scaled rapidly: it’s sold more than 7.5 million cans to date, reaching #1 on Amazon in both energy drink and grocery categories. The portfolio is centred around its productivity drink: but also features brain capsules, creatine sachets and an intriguing innovation: nootropicks (toothpicks with functional ingredients).
Neutonic expects to exceed $25m in revenue this year, having doubled revenue from 2024 to 2025 and forecasting a further three-fold increase into 2026.
James Smith built up his brand as a personal trainer (and founder of the James Smith Academy) with a cool 1.8 million users on TikTok and 1 million on Instagram. He’s also a Sunday Times #1 best-selling author (Not a Diet Book; Not A Life Coach; and How to be Confident).
Along with Chris, he’s the face of the brand: bringing his followers on the journey with him. But Luke Betts and Genflow CEO Shan Hanif make up the founding quadruplet of Neutonic: with quiet logic and acute business acumen keeping James and Chris in check when their enthusiasm goes overboard...
James takes us behind the scenes of the journey so far...
BD: Why nootropics?
JS: I think we’re now seeing a movement of people thinking about brain health and brain function. To us, productivity feels like the next fitness.
We’ve had this culture shift with Millennials and Gen Z. People are saying: ‘I’ve had a six pack, but it didn’t pay the bills. It didn’t alleviate the stress that my car finance is coming out in three days’.
They’ve been having their energy drinks in the gym, but now they want something to work harder and get more done: whether it’s a side hustle or a hobby.
In my early days as a personal trainer, I would work long days at the gym. And the way I grew my first 50,000 followers was going live every day on Facebook afterwards. And I had to get energized to do that.
If Neutonic had existed back then, I’d have walked an extra mile on the way home to get a can of it.
How long did it take you to create Neutonic?
It was easily a year before we had a can in the hand. We were all aware how successful Alpha Brain with Joe Rogan was, even if the discussion about nootropics wasn’t mainstream.
There was the design. We had some really crazy names... there was Refine, Bump, Mode, Dial. I still remember the cans and how terrible they looked. There were loads of different fonts to choose from: we had to look at domains, copyright. We chose Neutonic because it’s a play on nootropics but tonic being a drink.
And then one day, we’re going through all the designs on the can and the eye was already there but originally it looked quite stoned. I stopped everyone and said, ‘Wait – are we going to talk about this eye?!’. We need to clean it up a bit or people are going to think it’s a THC drink.
And there was a moment in the taste testing where we realised I could have quite basic taste buds, but it turned out Chris was the sommelier of energy drinks so he pretty much took the lead on all the flavours.
Most brand builders agree on one thing: don’t grow too much, too fast. Yet Neutonic has grown speedily and successfully. How?
We’re incredibly fortunate that Chris and I were generating a lot of goodwill with our audiences for years before we knew this drink would exist.
And it’s important to note there are a lot of things we’ve said ‘no’ to. Chris and I are like excited children, whenever we see something in the market, we turn up to meetings and say ‘we need this’ or ‘we want to do that’. I’ll come in and say ‘we’re creating a sleep supplement!’ and Chris will come in and say ‘probiotic soda!’. So you should see the amount of things that get shut down.
And although it’s flattering to be told we’re moving incredibly quickly, I have a bit of cognitive dissonance because I get to my desk and I’m like, what aren’t we doing well enough? Why did I deal with four customer service complaints in a day?
In our minds, we sometimes feel like we’re moving too slow. We know there’s other businesses in the beverage world doing 10x, 100x what we’re doing.
Wait – why are you dealing with customer service complaints? Surely you leave this to someone else?
In 2013, I booked a seminar on glute training for £250. Then I realised I had a wedding on that day and I panicked that I was going to waste £250.
I messaged the company and the owner emailed me back directly and said: ‘Hey mate, no worries, I’ll get that refunded for you’.
I remember sitting there thinking: ‘Wow, the owner got back to me’. And I’ve never forgotten what that feels like.
If I handle complaints personally - which I know we can’t scale - there’s a chance people will come back. And I’m also completely honest with them. You should see some of the emails I send. Someone will complain and I’ll say: ‘That’s f*****: Let me go and bash some heads in and get back to you’.
I also look at it from another marketing viewpoint. People in business think they’re taking the risk, but really, it’s the consumer taking the risk. They’re the ones paying £32 on a case of Neutonic.
If they don’t like the taste - and some people don’t - I need to say: ‘thank you for trying it’. And behind every person who didn’t like it, 20 other people bought it and enjoyed it, or however many it is.
Seven deadly things
What's your poison? Coffee. I know that's counterintuative. Sometimes people challenge me and say: 'Tell us why Neutonic is better than coffee'. And I'm like, 'no, coffee is awesome'. Have that first coffee, enjoy it, then have a Neutonic a bit later.
If you're going to meet your friend at a coffee shop in London, you shouldn't be having a Neutonic. You should be having a nice hot latte or flat white or whatever coffee you choose.
What's your worst vice? I am becoming very much a type A personality, which is very annoying because my second best-selling book was about work-life balance. And now I'm falling away from it and my vice at the moment is work.
Worst mistake? We called it 'Dodgy Orange': we produced nearly $100,000 worth of stock and the flavour was off.
I wanted to just give them away for free: but my other co-founders said no, we cannot have someone's first taste of Neutonic being subpar. That was a good save. In the end, Dodgy Orange got shipped out to me.
Biggest waste of money? Some of our paid-for marketing campaigns haven't worked out. I now work closely on this, getting our marketing tone right.
An entrepreneur you're jealous of? Dan Martell. He wrote a book called Buy Back Your Time : and he's very big on not wasting time, so that he can spend more time with his family.
When has your pride caused a fall? I have over a million followers and a big beverage brand... then I go and get my head kicked in by 26-year-olds at jiu-jitsu. It's a really grounding experience.
What makes you angry? Boring, robotic copy. Whether it's on LinkedIn or a marketing email, or sales copy. Think about whether there's an opportunity to be a bit cheeky: Ryanair have done it incredibly well on their social media, Currys have started stepping out a bit more. It's so refreshing.
I can send out some free cans of Neutonic, and end up with a customer for life. And those are the wins that excite me the most.
You’re now making waves in retail with more than 10,000 retail doors globally, and this new funding round will help you grow further. But I assume D2C was really what got the business off the ground?
Yes. I think some retailers did come knocking, but they didn’t have the most favourable agreements. And we saw other brands that had gone into retail too early.
We now have the time to educate people as to what the brand is and the problem that we’re solving. That’s an exciting prospect.
Retail listings
In the UK, Neutonic is rolling out into 500 Sainsbury’s stores this month as part of the retailer’s meal deal. This builds on existing listings including Ocado, Morrisons Daily, Booths and more than 1,200 Motor Fuel Group forecourts. The brand is also stocked in major gym chains including Fitness First and Everlast.
In the US, Neutonic is stocked in GNC, The Vitamin Shoppe and Central Market, with further national grocery expansion expected this summer.
Seems like like the potential of the brand is way wider than you thought it was?
Yes, which is equally frightening as it is exciting.
For a long time, I assumed that anyone with a Neutonic knew us and were followers. And to see people drink the product, who don’t know Chris or myself... that’s crazy.
People will find a can in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, put it on their stories, and tag Chris and I.
I’m one of the marketing brains. I train Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I ordered 5,000 rash guards with the Neutonic eye on the front and gave them away for free: with the premise that no-one’s crazy enough to wear a brand they’ve not tried.
James Smith
You just said the potential is frightening? Why?
If this doesn’t work out, it won’t be because of the product.
It will mean it was because it was of the management, the promotion, the people... us, as the founders.
That’s what’s frightening. It’s a great place to be in: but that’s what keeps us awake at night.
What does your working day look like?
Pure chaos and disorganisation.
One of the things I’ve come to realise about ADHD is that I’ve got good long-term memory but very bad-short term memory. I tell people what I need to do so they can remember for me. So I am chaotic in that sense.
But once I have gone from switching browsers, once I lock into something, I can focus. If you give me 10 things to do, I’ll do nothing. If you give me one thing to do, I’ll do it perfectly.
