Lily Geiger

Lily Geiger is the founder and CEO of Figlia, a non-alcoholic aperitivo brand she created in 2020 at age 24 from her mother's home in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.^[2][4] The brand — whose name means "daughter" in Italian — was born from Geiger's experience growing up with a father who battled alcoholism and who died from the disease in 2016, when she was twenty years old.^[1][14] Figlia launched online in April 2021 with a single product, Fiore, and generated $13,000 in its first week of sales.^[2][3]

Geiger bootstrapped the company for its first two years before taking on a friends-and-family investment round.^[13] By early 2025, Figlia was available in approximately 600 retail accounts across the United States, including Whole Foods Market in the New York metro area, Central Market in Texas, and Prime Wine and Spirits in Washington state.^[2] The brand has been covered by Vogue, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Ad Age, and Imbibe Magazine, and was included in Wirecutter's Best Nonalcoholic Drinks list in December 2024.^[3][6][7]

Geiger grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, attended the Rudolf Steiner School of New York City, studied abroad at The American University of Rome, and graduated from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Communication.^[4][13] Before founding Figlia, she worked in brand marketing at Beautycounter and at a boutique retail consulting agency in Los Angeles, where she worked with brands including Summer Fridays, APL, and Heyday.^[13] Figlia donates a percentage of all sales to Partnership to End Addiction and is a member of 1% for the Planet.^[2][18]

Lily Geiger was born in approximately 1996 and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, near Columbia University, on Riverside Drive.^[4][14] She was an only child of two single, self-employed parents whose marriage ended when she was five.^[4][14] Her father battled alcoholism throughout her childhood, cycling through rehab, relapse, and inpatient programs.^[14] Geiger has said she became aware of his drinking around age eleven but that he denied it, an experience she later described as disorienting.^[14] At sixteen, during her junior year of high school, she moved out of her father's home and lived with her aunt for a period in order to maintain stability while applying to college.^[14]

Geiger attended the Rudolf Steiner School of New York City, a Waldorf school where students began chopping vegetables and preparing soup together in kindergarten — an experience she has credited with shaping her relationship with food.^[4] She enrolled at Wake Forest University, where she studied Communication, and spent her junior year abroad at The American University of Rome studying Communication and Media Studies.^[4][13] During college, her father died from alcoholism in 2016.^[1][14] After his death, Geiger moved to Italy for approximately five months, living alone in Rome while processing her grief.^[4] It was during this period that she became immersed in the Italian aperitivo ritual — the unhurried, communal tradition of gathering over a drink before dinner — which would later become the conceptual foundation of Figlia.^[4][5]

Beautycounter and whiteLabel Consulting (2018–2020)

After graduating from Wake Forest, Geiger moved to Los Angeles and took an entry-level marketing position at Beautycounter, a clean beauty brand, where she spent approximately one year.^[13] She then joined whiteLabel Consulting, a boutique retail consulting agency in the Greater Los Angeles area, first as a marketing coordinator in May 2019 and then as marketing manager within eight months.^[13] At whiteLabel, she worked with consumer brands including Summer Fridays, APL (Athletic Propulsion Labs), and Heyday, gaining hands-on experience in brand strategy across multiple CPG categories.^[13] She has cited this period as formative, saying it gave her the confidence to start her own company and taught her how to keep a brand alive.^[13]

In July 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped daily life, Geiger left Los Angeles and relocated to her mother's home in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, a small town in the Berkshires.^[2][3]

Figlia (2020–present)

The idea for Figlia did not arrive in a single moment. Geiger has described it as a progression of thoughts that merged over several months in late 2020, drawing on a lifetime of experiences: growing up with an alcoholic parent, a lack of desire to drink because of that history, and a wish to build something of her own.^[3] During the pandemic, she noticed that her own drinking habits had shifted — she was reaching for a ritual to mark the end of the workday but did not want alcohol, and could not find a non-alcoholic option on the market that felt sophisticated enough to fill that role.^[3][1] She wanted something with the complexity of a Campari-based apéritif, but without alcohol — and, critically, without mimicking the taste of alcohol, which she considered potentially triggering for people in recovery.^[1][16]

By September 2020, Geiger had formed an LLC.^[2] She spent the next six months developing the product from her mother's kitchen, working with a recipe developer to create a flavor profile built around rose, bitter orange, ginger, chamomile, elderflower, and clove.^[2][4] The clove — which became a defining note — was a late addition, suggested by a chef friend who told her it would complete the recipe.^[4] Sourcing ingredients and packaging during the pandemic presented logistical challenges, with supply chains disrupted and in-person meetings impossible.^[2] She worked with RoAndCo, a branding studio in Los Angeles, to develop Figlia's visual identity entirely over Zoom, shipping samples back and forth.^[11][7]

The brand name, Figlia, means "daughter" in Italian — a reference both to Geiger's time in Italy after her father's death and to her identity as a daughter shaped by his disease.^[4][5] Figlia launched online on April 28, 2021, with a single product: Fiore (Italian for "flower"), a non-alcoholic aperitivo concentrate made with all-natural ingredients and no added sugar or preservatives.^[3][2] Geiger had no growth marketing budget; the launch was supported only by an Instagram account and a website.^[2] The brand generated $13,000 in its first week.^[2]

Geiger was twenty-four when she began developing Figlia and twenty-five at launch, with no prior experience in the food and beverage industry.^[4][3] She bootstrapped the company through its first two years of operation.^[13] In mid-2022, she took on the company's first outside investment — a friends-and-family round — while noting that Figlia had raised less than many of its peers in the non-alcoholic space, a deliberate choice to understand the brand before scaling it.^[13]

In July 2022, Figlia expanded its product line with 001 Fiore Frizzante, a ready-to-drink canned aperitivo combining the Fiore concentrate with sparkling water and lemon.^[9] The RTD format was designed to make the product more accessible in retail settings.^[9] Boisson, a non-alcoholic retail chain, was an early stockist that helped validate the category, though the chain closed its retail stores in early 2024 amid a broader restructuring — a development Geiger described as arriving without warning.^[8]

Distribution grew from approximately 400 regional accounts in Massachusetts and New York in early 2023 to over 525 stores, restaurants, and bars nationwide by early 2024.^[2][14] In 2024, Figlia entered Whole Foods Market in the New York metro area, followed by Central Market in Texas and Prime Wine and Spirits in Washington state, bringing the total to close to 600 accounts nationally by early 2025.^[2] The company's growth strategy has been deliberately regional, deepening penetration within existing markets before expanding geographically.^[2]

In April 2025, Figlia launched its second flavor, Sole (Italian for "sun"), featuring notes of lemon, peach, black tea, elderflower, basil, and peppercorn.^[15] Imbibe Magazine named Sole its Drink of the Week upon release.^[6] Air Mail recommended the product in May 2025.^[10] Drinkhacker reviewed both Fiore and Fiore Frizzante, noting the concentrate's bitter-orange-and-clove profile.^[12]

As of early 2025, Figlia is operated by a three-person team: Geiger in New York, Riley Johansson handling digital marketing from Miami, and Vivien Brown managing sales and operations from San Francisco.^[2] Production remains centralized in Utah.^[2] The brand donates a percentage of all sales to Partnership to End Addiction and contributes to local environmental nonprofits through 1% for the Planet.^[2][18]

Figlia's Fiore was included in Wirecutter's Best Nonalcoholic Drinks list in December 2024.^[2] Imbibe Magazine named Figlia Sole its Drink of the Week in April 2025.^[6] Ad Age featured Geiger for Women's History Month in 2023, profiling her work building an inclusive non-alcoholic brand.^[3] NutraIngredients selected her as a NutraWomen Wednesday honoree in March 2022.^[1] Print Magazine profiled Figlia's branding and visual identity, developed in collaboration with RoAndCo.^[7][11]

Geiger is based in New York City.^[2] She has described herself as a "born and bred New Yorker" and has said the city is a core part of her identity.^[4] She grew up watching boats on the Hudson River from her childhood windowsill on Riverside Drive.^[4] She has said she occasionally drinks wine but describes herself as a "super intuitive drinker" who avoids alcohol when it does not appeal to her.^[4][14] She has spoken publicly about her father's alcoholism and death on multiple occasions, including on the Heart of the Matter podcast hosted by journalist Elizabeth Vargas, and has said she found it easier to discuss his addiction after his passing.^[14]