This Week’s Logistics Tech and VC Update
Ugly food, Elon Musk tweets another thing, big ol’ autonomous boxes + more!
Probably not…. But they do care about launching fleets of cars in cities. Which is why Uber Electric is set to launch in its first US market, Portland — a market that does care quite a bit about the planet.
The company has partnered with Drive Oregon- a partially state-funded nonprofit that aims to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road. Uber’s target: 10% of Oregon cars be electric by 2019. Right now, only 100 out of 6000 are electric. That’s less than 2%, which also happens to be the percentage of employees that actually enjoy working for Uber at the moment.
Speaking of Uber being a terrible place to work:
Head of Comms, Rachel Whetstone is leaving the company. This is the 8th executive to bounce in the past couple of months.
And like those employees, let’s get away from Uber…
Delivering food is tough business. But maybe business will run smoother if you’re delivering tiny food — as in food for babies. Little Spoon is a new startup that is trying to do baby food delivery a bit differently by doing this thing called “making money.”
How? Unlike others in the market, they process their food similar to the way cold-pressed juice companies do- where they lock in nutrients and kill bacteria through high-pressure processing rather than using additives or preservatives.
Another important differentiator is their supply chain. First, they own the food production facility so they can control the process from beginning to end. Also, they offer a discount if customers plan ahead and buy in bulk.
With so many people trying this food delivery thing, the robots want in on the action to.
Nope. That’s a giant self-driving delivery robot. Yelp’s food delivery service, Yelp Eat24, has partnered with Marble, the robot delivery creator, to start delivering food via robot in San Francisco. The robot is a huge boxy thing that autonomously drives your food to your door.
This early on, it’s simply delivering restaurant items placed in heated bags to select neighborhoods in San Fran, but the Marble team plans to eventually upgrade the robot to function like a mobile oven or fridge with temperature control. You can imagine it even finishing up your pizza while it delivers it to you so that you get that fresh-out-the-oven experience. Noice.
The Marble team also plans on expanding its delivery options to groceries, pharmacy items and even packages.
In more (but different) delivery news:
The Warby Parker startup model has attracted many competitors to the market, but these startups have found that sending glasses to try on and getting those trials back is costly for the company. So an Italian startup, Quattrocento, has come up with a… weird… solution: Shipping paper versions of glasses for customers to try out.
Why? Well the startup doesn’t have to keep as much inventory of its actual glasses for try ons, and the customer doesn’t ship the paper glasses back because they are paper and Quattrocento doesn’t want them back. These trial glasses are meant to give a customer an idea of fit and sorta kinda an idea of look.
So it’s like if you wanted to try on clothes, and a company sent you a bunch of napkins…
In the opposite of delivery news,
With the latest Walmart news, we’re seeing even more clearly how the company is capitalizing on last year’s Jet acquisition. Jet’s Smart Cart technology has inspired Walmart to offer lower prices on certain online-only items if a customer opts for store pickup over delivery.
Jet uses Smart Cart technology to factor in the underlying logistics that get you your item, such as where it is warehoused and if it is near another item you are also ordering, and then uses that information to offer discounts based on the most efficient option for fulfillment.
What the Jet technology doesn’t take into account is the emotional turmoil brought on by having to go inside a Walmart to pick up your item, where speed and efficiency in checking out go to die.
Elon Musk has announced his electric semi truck will be revealed in September. Neato.
DoorDash- the food delivery startup- has agreed to pay $5 million after a class-action lawsuit that alleged the company misclassified its workers as independent contractors.
Important to note: The company is not agreeing to alter its practices and classify workers as employees. They will continue with the independent contractor model but will clarify their wording in future contracts.
This is a common issue in the gig economy. Our attorney friend, Dan Gilmore, wrote a post for us that clarifies the IC vc employee debate for founders.
Notable Funding from the Week:
Darkstore, a startup that helps companies to provide same-day delivery, closed a $1.4 million seed round. Darkstore takes advantage of excess capacity in storage facilities, malls and the like by coordinating space with retailers via a mobile app in order to turn that space into a mini fulfillment center. This is meant to help brands who don’t have local inventory to store in a Darkstore so that same-day shipping can be provided.
Our own Santosh recently wrote on the opportunity springing up as malls and other brick and mortar locations must adjust to the increasing presence of eCommerce. Check it out.
Full Harvest, a startup that is reducing food waste for farmers, has raised $2 million in seed funding. The company is solving a major problem in the agriculture industry, which is: Farmers are apparently wasting 20 to 4o percent of produce because grocery stores can’t sell it because it’s ugo. I sure as heck know that I’m not eating an asymmetrical tomato. What am I??? AN ANIMAL! So, the company connects farmers with food makers who want to buy the fruit and veggies that grocers won’t sell in stores
There are huge opportunities in AgriTech beyond ugly food. I wrote about other startups who are taking advantage of this, here:
Lyft has raised $600 million with a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion.
This brings Lyft’s total funding to $2.61 billion, which is a lot of money unless you compare it to Uber who as raised $8.8 billion to this point.
This new money comes in at an important juncture for the company. As Uber continues to eff things up, this is Lyft’s big chance.
And Even More Logistics Tech Funding:
Other Interesting Reading:
Thanks for reading! Be back next week for more interesting tech news in logistics, transportation and the supply chain. And, as always, put your comments below and click that heart, if it feels right.
Have a great week!
