In 2004, during a casual outing to a New York City bar, childhood friends Mike Kirban and Ira Liran met two young women from Brazil.

Shortly after that night, Ira hopped on a plane to Brazil to see one of the girls and learned that the coconut water hype was real. When Mike came to visit a few months later, they got down to business with a plan to bring coconut water to the US.

Vita Coco was born.