Although there had been fruitful talks before, initially GiG did not succeed in selling to Vrumona. For Bob Ponsen and his brother Max, however, it was no reason to give up, and a year later the deal was still done. "Vrumona had to be and would be it.
It all started when Max Ponsen (27) spotted a remarkable phenomenon while studying in the United States, where students were still indulging in excessive amounts of beer during his freshman year. But by the end of his studies, that had been almost completely taken over by hard seltzer, a light alcoholic low calorie mixed drink consisting of 4 to 5% alcohol and sparkling water to which a fruit flavor has been added.
Max told the story to his brother Bob (30) and the pair then thought: what they can do in America, we should be able to do in the Netherlands as well. Bob: 'In our country, too, there was now a growing realization among millennials and Gen-Z young people that beer might be too high-calorie, cocktails too sweet, too expensive and too high-alcoholic, and that healthier alternatives had to be available.'
Dream buyer
For their plans, however, the brothers needed an investor. They came into contact with Wassenaar real estate entrepreneur Ernest Menten, and together they devised to market the product as GiG. Says Ponsen, "Ernest already had an affinity for the beverage sector and once wanted to launch a beer brand himself. But that plan went into the fridge, because in the end he didn't dare to compete with Heineken.'
And so GiG Hard Seltzer, led by the young Ponsen brothers, was born. What followed was a period starting in 2020 where GiG tried to appeal to the target group through ambassadors and through guerrilla marketing. And it succeeded. There was also a strong commitment to partnerships with buyers. These were festival organizers, sports clubs, student associations and supermarkets including Dirk and Jumbo.
The Ponsen brothers, although there was stiff competition, managed to take a share of the Dutch Ready-To-Drink market by storm. And the major beverage companies noticed that, too. Although earlier talks with Vrumona did not immediately bear fruit, the brothers always remained hopeful that a takeover of GiG by the soft drink giant would still succeed. Bob: 'There were exploratory talks with other parties in between, but each time we ended up with the same party. That was Vrumona. That would and had to be it.'
In February 2025, together with investor Menten, they sold 100 percent of the shares in GiG to Vrumona, producer of Pepsi, Royal Club and Sisi, among others. 'They just have a lot of power in terms of distribution and we as GiG can only benefit from that,' Bob explains. 'In addition, they had some core values at Vrumona that you also find at GiG. One of those core values is that GiG considers itself fresh, and that includes Vrumona.'
Startup feeling
After the sale to Vrumona, Bob as CEO and Max as CFO decided to stay on board and work with Vrumona to put the brand further on the map. There are now between 10 and 15 men on the GiG payroll. Also, their youngest brother, Just (23), who has been an important pivot within GiG from day one because he belonged to an even younger target group, has now joined as an account manager.
Since the takeover by Vrumona, although an integration team has since been set up by the soft drink company to further integrate GiG into the Vrumona organization, very little has changed at GiG and so far they notice very little of the takeover by Vrumona. For example, according to Ponsen, there are no plans yet to move GiG's team to Bunnik, where Vrumona's headquarters is located. And beyond that, he has really only experienced the acquisition by Vrumona as positive.
Bob: 'We do spar together, but otherwise they just let us go about our business. We also recently moved into a new office in Amsterdam's Westpoort (formerly Westelijk Havengebied). This is a building with a huge storage area underneath where we can store part of our stock, so that our delivery people can immediately take them to a festival, for example, if necessary. In that respect, we still feel like a startup," Ponsen says.
The product range has since expanded to include a hard lemonade and a hard iced-tea, as well as alcohol. What he is especially proud of is that GiG is the first drink in Vrumona's portfolio to contain alcohol. "For the rest, it's just soft drinks. He is also proud that GiG is still one of the four or five hard seltzers left on the Dutch market. 'The rest have already disappeared from the scene.'
Not releasing a multiple on it
For how much GiG was taken over by Vrumona, Ponsen did not want to reveal, because that is how it was agreed with the soft drink producer. However, he does want to give a hint of how the takeover price (did not) come about. 'When Vrumona took us over we had revenue of between 4 and 5 million euros. But in a takeover like this you can't just take a multiple and assume that 4 or 5 times the revenue would have been paid. Because that's just not how it works in a deal like this.'
The reason Bob and Max Ponsen are staying on board with GiG for now is because they are far from finished building the brand and because they are eager to enter the next phase of growth with Vrumona. 'We have no intention of slowing down.'
