Bloomberg ran a story over the weekend about Russian grocery delivery service, Samokat, expanding into New York City this August. The U.S. operations will go by the name Buyk and will use the dark-store, limited-delivery radius model that has become all the rage this year. According to Bloomberg, Buyk already has agreements to open up…
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Google launched its new Find Food Support website today, which aims to connect people struggling with food insecurity to resources like food banks, school lunch programs, and food pantries. Google said in a blog post that it worked with No Kid Hungry, FoodFinder, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to capture data on food assistance programs…
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Up to now, Flashfood’s surplus grocery/food waste-fighting service has enjoyed a noteworthy but fairly small presence among American consumers. New developments are set to change that. The Canada-based company recently announced an expansion with The Giant Company that will make the Flashfood app and service available in many more grocery stores across the U.S. Carlisle,…
Uber is acquiring the remaining 47 percent in grocery delivery service Cornershop, according to Uber’s most recent 8-K filing, released at the end of last week. The all-stock transaction is expected to close next month. The deal follows Uber’s acquisition in 2019 of a majority stake in Chile-based Cornershop. At the time, Uber CEO Dara…
On-demand delivery service GoPuff announced today it has acquired fleet management company rideOS, with TechCrunch also reporting a $115 million price tag for the deal after speaking with sources familiar with the matter. GoPuff, which raised $1.5 billion this past March, operates a delivery service that can fulfill orders — anything from food to baby…
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Since we just held a Spoon event this week focused on reducing waste, I thought it appropriate to recycle my headline from earlier this year: We Need to Talk About Cashierless Checkout. I’m not just being lazy, I think we legitimately need to talk about cashierless checkout (again) because so much has happened since the…
Israel-based cashierless checkout startup Trigo has received a $10 million strategic investment from German supermarket chain Rewe. TechCrunch was first to report the news and also confirmed that Trigo has raised $104 million to date. Trigo is one of the many startups looking to bring cashierless checkout to grocery retail. The company’s technology relies on…
Amazon announced today that its new Fresh grocery store opening this week in Bellevue, Washington will feature Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. This is the first implementation of Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology in a full-sized grocery store. The grand opening for the new Amazon Fresh is Thursday, June 17 at the Bellevue Factoria Mall. To…
Boxed, a grocery e-commerce site that specializes in selling bulk items, is going public via special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Announced today, the deal is being done via merger with Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp., and the combined company will be valued at roughly $900 million. To date, Boxed had raised $243 .6million in funding. Founded…
Kroger launched its first retail drone delivery on Wednesday of this week in Centerville, Ohio. The Dayton Daily News reported that the drone’s maiden voyage dropped off two packages of rice to Centerville Mayor Brooks Compton on the front lawn of the city’s offices. Kroger announced the drone delivery program at the beginning of May,…
Cashierless checkout startup Grabango announced today that it has raised a $39 million Series B round of funding. The round was led by Commerce Ventures with participation from Founders Fund, Unilever Ventures, Honeywell Ventures, and WIND Ventures. This brings the total amount of funding raised by the company to $71.2 million. Grabango retrofits stores with…
Hungryroot, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to power its personalized online grocery service, announced today that it has raised a $40 million Series C round of funding led by the Growth Fund of L Catterton. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Hungryroot to $75.4 million. Hungryroot is a little different from other…