Athlete-backed Skoka raises $21.5M to fund FDA push for nicotine pouches
What's the deal? Skoka, a nicotine pouch startup, has raised $21.5 million and submitted a bundled Premarket Tobacco Product Application (PMTA) to the US Food and Drug Administration covering 55 products across 11 varieties and five strengths. It plans to begin US retail distribution in 2027, pending regulatory clearance.
Where the money went: The capital funded PMTA preparation, manufacturing scale-up, and hiring. Skoka committed $15 million to its regulatory program alone, including three completed pharmacokinetic studies and a scientific package covering stability, toxicology, actual use, and label comprehension.
Who's backing it? Investors include more than a dozen professional athletes across hockey, football, and golf, plus hockey team owners, corporations, and beverage and supplement executives. Named backers include media mogul Darren Throop, PSG Equity founder Mark HastingsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, golfer Anthony Kim, and hockey players Jack Eichel, Dylan Larkin, and Sam Gagner. Every athlete invested their own capital, not as a sponsorship or endorsement.
Why now? As of October 2026, only 43 nicotine pouch products have received FDA marketing authorization, all from manufacturers affiliated with two major tobacco companies. Unauthorised products still fill store shelves and websites.
What's the endgame? Rather than license an existing formulation and rebrand it, founder and chief executive officer Dan Aziz spent two and a half years building Skoka's own formulation, flavour system, and scientific package before filing. The company says it will list all ingredients on its website at launch, including plant-based sweeteners.
Aziz, who grew up playing hockey outside Toronto and uses pouches himself, named the brand after Lake Muskoka in Ontario. "Adults who use pouches every day want to know what's in them and who's standing behind them," he said. "We started from zero so we could answer both."
What could go wrong? Skoka's products remain subject to FDA review and marketing authorisation, with no guarantee the application clears. Its regulatory team has taken more than 200 products through the PMTA process before.
The signal: A consumer brand built around a comprehensive regulatory filing — and bankrolled partly by athletes putting in their own money — is a bet that compliance, not speed to shelf, wins in a market crowded with unauthorised products.
Read more: markets.financialcontent.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
