Michelle Cordeiro Grant

Michelle Cordeiro Grant is an American entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of GORGIE, a wellness-positioned energy drink brand that became the fastest-growing energy drink in the U.S. natural channel in 2024.^[16] She previously founded LIVELY, a direct-to-consumer lingerie brand that she sold to Wacoal International in 2019 for $105 million.^[4][6] GORGIE has raised $37 million in total funding, including a $24.5 million Series A led by Notable Capital in April 2025, and is distributed in more than 1,900 Target stores alongside Kroger, Sprouts, Albertsons, H-E-B, Whole Foods, and Erewhon.^[4][8][9]

Cordeiro Grant spent more than a decade in corporate retail before becoming a founder, holding merchandising and product development roles at Federated Merchandising Group, May Department Stores, and Victoria's Secret.^[1][6] At both LIVELY and GORGIE, she applied the same playbook: identifying a large consumer category dominated by legacy brands, building a community before building a product, and crowdsourcing product development from that community.^[5][15] LIVELY amassed more than 165,000 brand ambassadors before its acquisition; GORGIE's first TikTok post earned 100,000 likes before a single can had been manufactured.^[15][5]

Cordeiro Grant is a first-generation American of Indian descent who grew up in rural Pennsylvania.^[1] She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Finance in 2002.^[6] She is also an angel investor and the host of the No Makeup Needed podcast.^[14]

Cordeiro Grant was born and raised in New Smithville, Pennsylvania, a small town where her family — immigrants from India — was the only Indian household.^[1][6] She has described brands as the mechanism through which she assimilated into her community as a child, and as a teenager she would trade her lunch money for bus tickets to New York City to visit flagship stores on Fifth Avenue.^[2][6]

Her parents expected her to pursue medicine or law.^[1] She briefly enrolled in law school after college but left within weeks, having realized that her interest lay in product development and brand-building.^[6] She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.S. in Finance in 2002 and has described her subsequent decade in corporate retail — at Federated, May Company, and Victoria's Secret — as her "retail MBA."^[6][1]

Corporate retail career (2002–2015)

Cordeiro Grant began her career as a product assistant at Federated Merchandising Group, the buying and product development arm of Federated Department Stores (later Macy's).^[6] She landed the role by attending a job fair at a school she did not attend — a story she has told as emblematic of her approach to creating her own opportunities.^[1] She subsequently moved to May Department Stores, where she rose from associate product manager to senior merchandise manager before May's merger with Federated in 2005.^[6]

She then spent approximately four years at Victoria's Secret, rising to director and senior merchant.^[1][6] It was during this period that she identified the disconnect that would seed LIVELY: the $13 billion U.S. lingerie category was dominated by a single brand and a single point of view that, in her assessment, did not reflect the experiences of everyday women.^[6][15] She also observed her female mentors being forced to choose between career and family — a realization she has cited as the moment she decided to pursue entrepreneurship.^[6]

A non-compete agreement prevented her from immediately entering the lingerie market after leaving Victoria's Secret.^[6] She joined Thrillist Media Group as vice president of merchandising, an intentional move into the startup world.^[6] During her tenure, Thrillist grew from 30 to 300 employees and from single-digit millions to more than $70 million in revenue.^[6]

LIVELY (2016–2022)

Cordeiro Grant founded LIVELY in 2016 as a direct-to-consumer lingerie and leisurewear brand.^[15][6] She coined the term "Leisurée" — a portmanteau of lingerie and athleisure — during a five-mile run in Central Park.^[6] Before selling a single product, she spent six months building a mailing list and community; the pre-launch generated 133,000 email signups in 48 hours and 280,000 unique global sessions.^[15] LIVELY sold out of its initial inventory within two weeks and shipped to all 50 U.S. states within 45 days of launch.^[15]

She prepared her first investor pitch by Googling "business plan for dummies" after sending her husband and daughter out of the apartment for 48 hours.^[6] The company raised approximately $15 million in funding and grew to more than 165,000 brand ambassadors, five retail stores, and a full lifestyle collection spanning swimwear, loungewear, and activewear.^[15][1] In 2019, Wacoal International acquired LIVELY for $105 million — initially announced at $85 million plus a guaranteed earnout — making it one of the fastest exits in the direct-to-consumer lingerie category.^[4][6]

Cordeiro Grant remained in a founder and advisory role at LIVELY until approximately 2022. She has described the decision to leave as a moment of self-reflection: the company had grown to the size of the corporate organizations she had left years earlier, and what she wanted as a person — to build again — diverged from what LIVELY needed as a scaled business.^[6]

GORGIE (2022–present)

After leaving LIVELY, Cordeiro Grant moved from New York to Florida in 2022.^[6] There, she noticed energy drinks everywhere — in the hands of teachers, fitness enthusiasts, and office workers — yet felt no connection to any existing brand.^[4][6] She read a Celsius earnings report and recognized a $20 billion industry dominated by legacy brands that, in her view, did not speak to women.^[4] She was also personally frustrated by the six daily supplements she was taking for hydration, gut health, skin, hair, and nail support, and wanted a single functional beverage that could replace them.^[6]

She validated the concept on social media before producing a single can, posting to her community and surveying followers via Google Forms to determine whether the product should be a powder, a candy, or a ready-to-drink beverage.^[4][5] The first sample post, in August 2022, earned 100,000 likes by Labor Day weekend.^[5][2] She then conducted blind taste tests against Red Bull, Monster, and Celsius with strangers, going through 40 to 50 formulation rounds — including a reformulation one month before launch.^[4]

GORGIE officially launched on January 11, 2023, at Whole Foods' newest New York City location at One Wall Street and via e-commerce.^[5][1] The product — a sparkling energy drink with 150 milligrams of green tea caffeine, L-theanine, vitamins B6 and B12, and biotin, with no aspartame, sucralose, or erythritol — was one of the few energy drinks that met Whole Foods' ingredient standards.^[6][5] Within six months, the brand had expanded to more than 650 retail locations, including Sprouts Farmers Market.^[7] Erewhon reached out to the brand unsolicited via social media, a development Cordeiro Grant initially mistook for spam.^[4]

The company raised $6.5 million in pre-seed funding in June 2023 from individual investors including Yossi Nasser, Nancy Twine, and Jason Cohen.^[7] GORGIE closed its first year with seven-figure revenue and grew five times over in its second year.^[11][16] By 2024, it was the fastest-growing energy drink in the U.S. natural channel, contributing more than 20 percent of category growth.^[16][11]

In April 2025, GORGIE closed a $24.5 million Series A led by Notable Capital, with participation from Coefficient Capital and individual investors, bringing total funding to $37 million.^[4][9] The round coincided with a launch into 863 Target stores, which expanded to 1,939 Target locations by summer 2025.^[8][17][16] The brand is also distributed through Kroger, Albertsons, H-E-B, The Fresh Market, and Bristol Farms, with DSD distribution through New York's Big Geyser and wholesale through UNFI and KeHE.^[11][16] Direct-to-consumer customers reorder on average every eight days.^[4][16]

In December 2025, social media personality Alix Earle joined GORGIE as a strategic investor.^[12][13] In January 2026, the brand launched its first protein energy drink line extension, developed in response to community demand.^[20] The brand has generated more than one billion organic social media impressions and launched Club G, a members-only app for product drops, events, and community rewards.^[11][10]

Brand-building approach

Cordeiro Grant has applied a consistent methodology across both LIVELY and GORGIE: identifying large consumer categories dominated by legacy incumbents, building a community before building a product, and treating consumer brands with the emotional vocabulary of fashion.^[5][4] At GORGIE, she printed stickers reading "Gorgie Girls of LA" and handed out postcards before a single can existed.^[2] The brand ships a print magazine with every direct-to-consumer order, featuring community members on its pages and on the cans themselves.^[5] She has described the approach as treating brands like fashion brands — creating emotional connection rather than competing on product specifications alone.^[4]

BevNET has covered GORGIE as part of a broader shift in the energy drink category toward female consumers, noting the brand's social-media-native marketing and community-first development model.^[18] GORGIE's social media audience is approximately 70 percent female and 30 percent male.^[5]

GORGIE was named the fastest-growing energy drink in the U.S. natural channel in 2024, contributing more than 20 percent of category growth, according to multiple trade publications.^[16][11] The brand was selected as a finalist in the New Beverage Showdown at BevNET Live Summer 2023.^[5]

Cordeiro Grant was a featured speaker at the Inc. 5000 Conference and Gala in both 2023 and 2024, speaking on fast-growth brand building and exit strategy, respectively.^[1][6] She has been profiled in Forbes, Fortune, Retail Dive, Marie Claire, Adweek, and WWD.^{[1][4][6][14][15][12]} She also hosts the No Makeup Needed podcast, which features interviews with female entrepreneurs and leaders.^[14]

Cordeiro Grant is a first-generation American; her parents immigrated to the United States from India.^[1] She grew up in New Smithville, Pennsylvania, where her family was the only Indian household in the town.^[6] She is married and has two children.^[6] She discovered she was pregnant two months before LIVELY's official launch.^[6] She is based in New York.^[14]