Kim Kardashian’s Update is the latest brand to give energy drinks a refresh with women in mind
In February, competition in the energy drink space heated up further as Update, a 4-year-old startup, announced it was bringing on Kim Kardashian as co-founder. With it, Update also gets her expertise in building, branding and scaling consumer-driven businesses.
The brand’s big selling point is that it does not use caffeine, but instead paraxanthine, the active compound the human body naturally forms from caffeine. Alongside the announcement that it is adding Kardashian as a co-founder, this week Update is also launching at its largest retailer, Walmart, with an exclusive variety pack rolling out in over 4,000 locations. That will be followed by other major retail launches later this spring.
In the last few years, deals like the Celsius acquisition of Alani Nu helped cement a new aesthetic in the energy drink segment, one that caters more toward young women interested in better-for-you products This new look veers away from the loud and dark packaging of many legacy brands in the category. Even Monster announced it was launching a “female-focused” energy drink with zero sugar called Flrt. Now, Update is hoping Kardashian’s involvement and the increased interest in traditional energy beverage alternatives will be a winning recipe.
According to Update, Kardashian “discovered Update in 2023 through a personal interest in functional wellness,” and eventually met with the company to give feedback on flavors, formulation and packaging. Kardashian officially joined the brand as co-founder in mid-2025, in time to launch it on retail shelves. The company relaunched the line with revamped flavors like berry, grape, peach, mandarin and pineapple, all of which contain no calories or sugar.
“The energy category has historically centered around intensity, bigger cans, louder flavors and higher caffeine counts,” Daniel Solomons, co-founder and CEO of Update, told Modern Retail. Aside from bringing paraxanthine to the masses, Solomons said Update’s sleek new packaging takes major inspiration from Kardashian’s signature minimalist branding, using a soft pastel color palette. The brand previously used shiny, brightly-colored cans. Solomons said Kardashian is “actively involved in shaping product, brand and creative direction as we scale nationally.”
For years, Solomons added, the aggressive look and feel of energy drinks — cemented by big players like Red Bull and Monster — reinforced the idea that performance has to come with tradeoffs like jitters, crashes or sleep disruption. “What we’re seeing now is a shift toward more intentional energy,” he said.
While Update is not strictly marketed toward women, Solomons said its formula and branding do reflect the tastes of the modern energy beverage drinkers, many of which are young women interested in wellness. “Consumers are still looking for focus and performance,” he said. “But they’re increasingly aware of how products make them feel and are seeking options that support clarity and control rather than overstimulation.”
“As we’ve grown, working with Kim Kardashian as a co-founder has further reinforced that vision,” Solomons said. By formulating with paraxanthine, Solomons said, Update is trying to have energy work with the consumer’s body, “not against it.”
Industry watchers view the addition of Update as a test for consumers’ appetite for better-for-you energy sources.
Rachel Hirsch, founder and managing partner of Wellness Growth Ventures, said there is enough demand in the energy drink sector to support multiple energy drink brands designed for young women.
Hirsch pointed to the generational shift to canned energy drinks as a culprit. Gen Z is quickly helping make energy beverages a hot space, as this cohort spends more on clean-label energy drinks than previous generations. “It’s even stolen a massive share from alcohol and is still growing,” Hirsch said. “It’s more like a supplement category in my mind.”
Some existing brands in the category see Update’s entry as further legitimizing the sub-category. Michelle Cordeiro Grant, founder and CEO of Gorgie, is one such example.
“Honestly? My first reaction was genuine excitement,” Grant said. “Seeing Kim Kardashian enter the female-geared energy drink space tells you everything you need to know about where this category is going.”
Grant said it helps when a celebrity brand builder of Kardashian’s caliber finds potential in a market. “It’s the category saying out loud what we’ve known since day one: Women have been underserved in energy for a very long time, and the opportunity to change that is enormous,” Grant said. “It is amazing to see like-minded brands and creators that lean toward women but are truly dual-gender.”
It’s still early to tell whether the golden Kardashian touch will further fuel the so-called feminine energy drink category, said Hirsch. “It is such a brilliant play with so much opportunity,” she said. “We will see how involved [Kardashian] is, but it could be the easy winner.”
Grant said she doesn’t see a “winner-takes-all” outcome in booming categories like energy, which appeal to various demographics beyond young women. “It’s about who’s listening to the consumer most obsessively,” she said. “Right now, the consumer is telling all of us, ‘We want better energy, better ingredients and something that actually feels like it was built for us.’”