Devil’s Foot Beverage Co., a local company that specializes in all-natural sodas and sparkling waters, formed in late 2017.

 “We were just a group of friends making mixers for ourselves … until we got to a point where we realized what we were making was really good,” says co-founder Jacob Baumann. “At that point, we thought it’d be a good idea to try it out as a business.”

For the majority of the company’s existence, Baumann and co-founder Ben Colvin have managed all daily operations, from production and distribution to sales and community outreach. But more recently, Devil’s Foot added its first part-time position, with plans to hire up to three more part-time employees.

The expansion comes courtesy of a $50,000 grant from NC IDEA, a private foundation that supports entrepreneurial ambition and economic advancement in the state. “The grant is going to allow us to scale up at a quicker pace than we would have been able to,” Baumann explains.