Nadeshot admits 100 Thieves “whiffed” by not signing Kai Cenat for huge project

100 Thieves CEO Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag has revealed that he and 100 Thieves “completely whiffed” when they neglected to sign up Twitch record breaker Kai Cenat for their energy drink.

Since Nadeshot launched 100 Thieves in 2017, it’s become one of the biggest esports and gaming lifestyle brands, known off the server primarily for its exclusive, limited merchandise and apparel drops.

Since then, it has won multiple championships in-game and awards out of it, and in recent years, has started to diversify its revenue streams by launching or owning other brands.

One of these is their energy drink, Juvee, which officially launched in the United States in October 2022. Nadeshot, however, has revealed that the product could have ended up having Twitch star Kai Cenat as a partner, which would inevitably have been huge for the brand.

Nadeshot on signing Kai Cenat for Juvee

In the latest episode of his new podcast, Nade and his assistant Joe spoke about Kai’s newfound success and the huge subathon that helped him surpass the 300k subscriber mark.

They then got on to the topic of Nade and Juvee’s major miss, with Haag saying: “When we were architecting our marketing launch campaign for Juvee, Sam Keene [President, Juvee] actually had Kai Cenat in a deck to become one of the foundational creators that we launch with.

“In my mind, I didn’t know who he was. I mean that out of pure ignorance, not a lack of respect. Since 100 Thieves started, I just haven’t been paying as much attention … Six months later, when we end up launching Juvee to the public, little did I know Kai Cenat was just going to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.”

Timestamp 8:10

Nade added that he “completely whiffed” on not signing Kai Cenat up, but revealed that he ran into the star at TwitchCon and felt it was “cool” that Kai recognized him.

Creator-led brands are definitely huge in 2023, with PRIME — the hydration drink created by British YouTuber KSI and US influencer extraordinaire Logan Paul — making the pair millions.

Whether Juvee can achieve the same lofty heights remains to be seen, but it’s fair to say that that might have been made easier with Kai Cenat on their side.