The brand wasn't called LYX. It was called the Pet Water Project, and it was selling canned hydration drinks out of a cooler at a Fort Worth farmers market. The dogs responded immediately. The product had real insight behind it: working dogs, active dogs, and senior dogs face hydration challenges a standard water bowl doesn't solve. But the format was the problem. Canned liquid was expensive to produce and ship, making DTC unworkable and retail economics difficult. The brand had no name, no identity, and no path to scale in its current form.
Most early-stage investors would have passed. The product was right. Everything around it needed to be built.
- — The canine hydration category was not a niche — it was a gap. The human electrolyte market had crossed $35 billion globally, with no brand of consequence in the dog space.
- — Pet supplements had reached $2.76 billion in 2025, growing at nearly 7% annually. Purina had entered cat hydration. Mars, Hill's, and Royal Canin had not touched dog hydration.
- — "Dog electrolytes" was generating 34,000 monthly searches as of March 2026, up 86% year-over-year, with volume hockey-sticking after years of flat growth.
- — Consumer intent was outpacing supply. No brand of consequence had stepped into the space. The window was real, but only for a brand built to lead a category — not just participate in one.
The product worked. The category was real. Neither one had a brand yet.
The first move was the format. Alamar directed a pivot from canned liquid to a powdered stick-pack — the same format that had scaled some of the most successful DTC investments in the CPG space. The move cut production costs and opened the door to a direct-to-consumer strategy that could actually build a business.
The second move was the brand. For that, Alamar brought in Six+One, the New York-based creative firm behind more than $6.4 billion in CPG brand acquisitions, with a portfolio that includes Hippeas, Body Armor, and Unbuzzd. The brief was not to make the product look better. It was to build a brand that could own a category. The result was LYX: a name, visual identity, and brand architecture built for retail shelf presence, DTC conversion, and the long game of category leadership.
The third move was proof. Working with Six+One, LYX built an activation at AKC Celebrates USA 250 in Philadelphia around a premise no competitor had tried: target the dog, not the owner. Creative ran at dog height. Sniff stations, staffed hydration checkpoints, and play areas were built around the dogs themselves. An on-site hydration test found that 80% of participating dogs showed signs of dehydration. That field data became the foundation of the brand's message. Ad Age selected the campaign as one of the top 13 advertising campaigns of the week, placing LYX alongside Heinz, Heineken, Walmart, and Duolingo.
LYX entered July — National Pet Hydration Awareness Month — holding the #1 spot on Amazon in canine hydration.