The Alani founder is Katy Hearn Schneider, a fitness coach who launched the brand in 2018 alongside her husband Haydn Schneider. Built for women, scaled through social media and retail, and sold to Celsius Holdings for $1.8 billion in 2025 this is a factual look at who built it and how.
Quick Answer: Who Is the Alani Founder?
Two people founded Alani Nu. Katy Hearn Schneider is the more publicly visible of the two she was the fitness influencer who drove the brand concept, product direction, and community. Her husband, Haydn Schneider, co-founded the company and brought a fitness retail background into the business.
Important distinction: Congo Brands run by Trey Steiger and Max Clemons is often mentioned in the same breath as the founders. They were not. Congo Brands joined after the brand was established, as an operational and equity partner. All four parties were named sellers when Celsius acquired the company in 2025, but only Katy and Haydn founded it.
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Who Is Katy Hearn Schneider?
Before Alani Nu: Fitness Coach, Not Entrepreneur
Katy didn't start with a business plan. She started by getting herself healthy, documenting it online, and building an audience of women who trusted her because she showed her actual process not a curated highlight reel.
Over time, coaching clients started asking her the same question: what supplements should I take? She looked at what was available. Most products were either aimed at men, loaded with ingredients she couldn't stand behind, or marketed in a way that felt disconnected from the women she was talking to every day.
She didn't recommend any of them. That discomfort became the business.
One recurring inconsistency across sources: some say Katy started her Instagram in 2012, others say 2021. No authoritative source has confirmed the date. Worth knowing before you cite either figure.
Why She Founded Alani Nu
The founding logic was direct. Katy was being asked for supplement recommendations and had none she trusted. The gap wasn't just in product quality it was in who the products were designed for. She wanted clean ingredients, honest labeling, and formulas built with women's health in mind.
Her personal experience with hormone imbalances fed directly into product development. Alani Nu's Balance supplement one of its earliest bestsellers came from that firsthand experience and from conversations with clients dealing with the same issues. That's not a marketing story retrofitted onto a product; it's how the product came to exist.
Other Businesses Katy Has Built
Alani Nu was never her only project. Alongside it, Katy built a CBD brand called Onyx + Rose, an athleisure clothing line called Stori, and a fitness app called Sesh previously known as Fit by Katy which reportedly reached over 450,000 users. These are separate ventures, not spin-offs of Alani Nu.
Who Is Haydn Schneider?
Co-Founder and Fitness Professional
Haydn Schneider is Katy's husband and Alani Nu's co-founder. His background included working at The Vitamin Shoppe and running a 10,000 sq ft personal training facility. That gave him direct experience with both fitness retail and client-facing wellness useful context for building a supplement company.
What's often overlooked is how little has actually been published about Haydn's specific role inside Alani Nu. Katy is the one who appears in brand storytelling, interviews, and announcements.
Haydn is consistently named as co-founder, but the internal division of responsibilities between them has never been broken down publicly. Readers should keep that in mind when articles assign credit broadly.
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How Alani Nu Grew: From Supplements to a $1.8B Exit
2018: The Launch
Alani Nu started as a supplements brand pre-workouts, protein powders, and wellness products designed for women. Clean formulas, minimal fillers, full transparency on ingredients.
The positioning wasn't entirely new, but the audience was specific and the trust was already there. Katy's followers already believed in her judgment before they tried anything she made.
2019: The Energy Drink That Changed the Trajectory
Entering the energy drink market in 2019 turned out to be the inflection point. Most energy drinks at the time leaned heavily into aggressive, male-skewing branding.
Alani Nu went the other direction bright packaging, flavor names like Cosmic Stardust and Breezeberry, zero-sugar formulas with vitamins. It found a large audience of women who had been buying energy drinks despite the branding, not because of it.The drinks became the flagship product. Everything else grew around them.
2020–2021: Revenue That Caught the Industry's Attention
Revenue grew roughly 335% in a single year from $68 million in 2020 to approximately $228 million in 2021. The brand appeared on Louisville Business First's Fast 50 list of the city's fastest-growing companies in both 2021 and 2022.
Products were available in around 62,000 US stores, including Target, Walmart, Kroger, GNC, and The Vitamin Shoppe.That kind of growth in one year is uncommon. It validated both the product and the distribution strategy.
Congo Brands: Operational Partner, Not Co-Founder
As demand scaled, Trey Steiger and Max Clemons co-founders of Congo Brands came in to handle the operational side: manufacturing, distribution, logistics, and retail expansion. They took an equity stake in return. By mid-2023, Congo LLC managed three brands: Alani Nu, PRIME Hydration, and 3D Energy.
The exact ownership split between the Schneiders and Congo Brands was never publicly disclosed. What is confirmed is that all four parties Katy and Haydn Schneider, plus Clemons and Steiger — were named as sellers in the Celsius acquisition.
2023: Exploring a Sale at a $3 Billion Valuation
In mid-2023, Alani Nu began exploring a full or partial sale. Reuters reported the company's valuation at that stage had exceeded $3 billion. That's the number often cited in coverage but it was an asking-price-era valuation during an active sale process, not a confirmed transaction figure. The actual deal, when it came, was lower.
The Celsius Holdings Acquisition: Deal Terms and What Happened After
What the $1.8 Billion Deal Actually Included
In February 2025, Celsius Holdings announced a definitive agreement to acquire Alani Nu for $1.8 billion. After applying approximately $150 million in net present value of tax benefits, the net purchase price came to $1.65 billion. The structure: $1.275 billion in cash, $500 million in newly issued Celsius Holdings shares (roughly 8.7% pro-forma ownership), and a potential $25 million earn-out tied to 2025 performance results.
Celsius framed the valuation as attractive less than three times Alani Nu's 2024 revenue of $595 million. The deal was expected to close in Q2 2025.
Katy Hearn's Role After the Sale
Alani Nu continues to operate under Celsius Holdings as a standalone brand. Congo Brands' leadership stayed on as advisors post-close. What Katy Hearn Schneider's ongoing involvement looks like whether advisory, operational, or none has not been publicly confirmed. Her statement at the time of the announcement expressed pride in the brand and confidence in Celsius as a steward, but stopped short of describing any future role.
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Conclusion
Alani Nu was founded by Katy Hearn Schneider and Haydn Schneider in 2018. Katy is the public-facing founder; Haydn co-founded but operated largely behind the scenes. Congo Brands scaled the operation. In 2025, all four principals sold to Celsius Holdings for $1.8 billion. The brand now runs under Celsius.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Katy Hearn the only Alani founder?
No. Haydn Schneider co-founded the brand with her. Katy is the more publicly visible founder, which leads some sources to list her alone — but Haydn is named co-founder in all official communications, including the Celsius acquisition announcement.
Does Katy Hearn still own Alani Nu?
No. She was among the sellers when Celsius Holdings acquired the company in 2025. Alani Nu is now a Celsius Holdings brand. Katy's post-sale role, if any, has not been publicly detailed.
What did Congo Brands have to do with Alani Nu's founding?
Congo Brands was not involved in founding Alani Nu. It joined later as an operational and equity partner. Trey Steiger and Max Clemons handled manufacturing and distribution, took a stake in the company, and were named sellers alongside the Schneiders in the 2025 deal.
Why did Alani Nu sell for $1.8B when it was valued at over $3B in 2023?
The $3 billion figure came from a Reuters report during Alani Nu's 2023 sale exploration process it reflects valuation expectations at the time, not a confirmed price. The final deal with Celsius closed at $1.8 billion gross in early 2025. Sale process valuations and final transaction prices routinely differ.
When did Katy Hearn start her Instagram?
Published sources conflict here. Some cite 2012, others 2021. No authoritative source has confirmed a date. Both figures appear in widely cited articles and neither has been corrected publicly.
