After vapes staved off the extinction of tobacco, a new generation of nicotine products is promising a safer, albeit no less addictive, form of consumption through tobacco-free pouches made popular by the likes of Zyn and Velo. Now, a celebrity-backed upstart called Sesh is trying to challenge those incumbents.
Buoyed by $40 million in venture funding from Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC, along with music stars Diplo and Post Malone, Sesh is pitching itself as a safer alternative for cigarette and vape users through so-called “white pouches”—one of the fastest growing consumer categories.
While Sesh is competing against big tobacco offerings like Philip Morris’s Zyn, its founder and CEO, Max Cunningham, says that Sesh’s independent status—and unique formula, designed by Zyn’s inventor—will make it a formidable opponent. “Not all pouches are created equal,” he told Fortune.
A native of British Columbia, Cunningham grew up playing hockey, where chewing tobacco was omnipresent. He shifted to vaping but couldn’t quit the habit until he was introduced to his first nicotine pouches. (Cunningham says he currently goes through about a half a can of Sesh, or 10 pouches, a day.)
If the pouch wars are determined by cultural dominance, rather than ingredients, Sesh is also coming well-armed. Its newest funding round includes not just the pop titans Post Malone and Diplo, but comedian Andrew Schulz, who is especially popular with the “podcast bro” crowd.
8VC’s Jake Medwell has been instrumental in helping Sesh scale up, including convincing the startup to move to the venture firm’s home of Austin. Medwell told Fortune he was drawn to Sesh, even though 8VC doesn’t typically invest in the consumer category, because he believed in the startup’s mission of bringing nicotine users to a safer way to consume. “People don’t want to vape anymore,” he said. (Nicotine itself is an unconventional category for venture capital, with many firms having restrictions on “vice” categories, but 8VC is known for investing in controversial sectors like defense tech.)
Meanwhile, Sesh continues to grow, with 30 full-time employees and availability in more than 5,000 stores across the U.S. and Canada. Cunningham said the company is on track to grow 5,000% year-over-year.
“We’re really trying to raise the standard in nicotine,” Cunningham said. “It’s important for emerging brands like Sesh to exist in the category, and for it not to be just dominated by big tobacco.”
