-
Sarah Michelle Gellar on jumping from screen to startup with Foodstirs
It’s no secret that more celebrities are flocking to tech and venture capital these days. The latest to make the leap into entrepreneurship is Sarah Michelle Gellar, best known for her TV role as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and most recently as the voice of The Seventh Sister inquisitor in the animated series Star Wars Rebels. The company she founded with CEO Galit Laibow and COO Greg… Read More
-
FarmLogs raises $22 million to make agriculture a more predictable business
Ann Arbor, Michigan-based FarmLogs has raised $22 million in a Series C round of funding for technology that helps farmers monitor and measure their crops, predict profits, manage risks from weather and pests and more. Naspers Ventures led the round, joined by the company’s earlier backers Drive Capital, Huron River Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, SV Angel and individual… Read More
-
Kuli Kuli raises $4.25 million to make moringa a mainstay in the US diet
Oakland-based food startup Kuli Kuli has raised $4.25 million in a Series A round of funding to bring moringa, a high-protein plant, to more kitchens in the U.S., according to CEO and co-founder Lisa Curtis. During her time working in Niger for the Peace Corps, Curtis got a taste for the moringa plant, which grows pervasively in tropical climates and is higher in iron, calcium and protein… Read More
-
Online grocery GrubMarket breaks even, and wants to go public in 2018
Despite the copious amounts of venture funding that have flowed to them in recent years, food tech startups haven’t had an easy time of it especially in the food delivery game. Since 2015, GoodEggs, Zesty and Munchery have shuffled their executive decks, meal kit delivery darlings Blue Apron struggled with worker safety, and logistics providers Postmates struggled to lock in a new… Read More
-
Sprig adds tips and equity to keep meal deliverers loyal
Some Sprig customers might be bitter about getting guilt-tripped into tipping, but at least the startup is being sweet to its on-demand food servers. TechCrunch spotted that Sprig added a tipping feature to its freshly made meal-delivery app this week. Now Sprig has confirmed this is part of a wide-range of not-yet-announced perks for its servers, including a $1/hour wage increase, to $14.50… Read More
-
SmartyPans tracks your meal’s nutrition as you cook it
As you can probably guess from the company’s name, SmartyPans is building a smart frying pan — which it just demonstrated onstage at TechCrunch’s Hardware Battlefield at CES. As explained to me by CTO Rahul Baxi (he co-founded the company with his sister Prachi Baxi, a nutritionist), SmartyPans aims to make it easier for users to track nutrition and recipe… Read More
-
SOSV, “the accelerator VC,” closes third fund at $150 million
Since the advent of accelerators, venture capitalists have competed to lock in deals with the best startups in a given batch. Entrepreneur turned investor Sean O’ Sullivan thought it would be better to develop a venture firm that owned and ran its own accelerators. Today that firm, SOSV, has closed its third fund at $150 million to back startups that are admitted to and have graduated… Read More
-
Amazon patents show flying warehouses that send delivery drones to your door
We’ve known about Amazon’s drone delivery ambitions since 2013. But patent filings from Amazon, circulated today by CB Insights’ Zoe Leavitt, reveal more details about how the e-commerce titan could make drone deliveries work at scale, namely through “airborne fulfillment centers.” Yes, that’s a warehouse in a zeppelin. The airborne fulfillment centers… Read More
-
Byte Foods raises $5.5 million for smart vending machines that serve local fare
Apple juniper kombucha or a BBQ chopped salad may soon replace the can of soda and bag of chips in a vending machine at your office. A San Rafael-based startup called Byte Foods has raised $5.5 million in seed funding to popularize its smart vending machines and delivery service stocking them with nutritious food and drinks from local vendors. If the idea of the internet-connected vending… Read More
Latest Crunch Report
-
Crunch Network
Will technology prevent the next food shortage crisis?
According to scientists, the answer to an impending food shortage might be found in a new age of digital technologies that have proven their worth in different fields and have the potential to transform agriculture and food production and meet the consumption needs of the growing human population before we’re driven to eat cockroaches — or worse, each other. Read More
-
Uber losses expected to hit $3 billion in 2016 despite revenue growth
Uber’s losses are growing from $2.2 billion last year to an expected $3 billion this year, according to multiple reports this week from The Information and others. It’s hard to fathom Uber operating so far from profitability at a time when it feels like an established mainstream brand on the global stage. Hip hop stars like Drake or Wiz Khalifa commonly name check… Read More
-
2016 isn’t done yet as Soylent powder goes back on sale
It’s nearing the end of the year, but 2016 isn’t finished with us yet: Soylent powder has gone back on sale. Read More
-
Munchery tries to win over commuters with a pop-up shop in San Francisco
Food delivery startup Munchery is trying its hand at brick-and-mortar sales, opening a pop-up shop in San Francisco that we spotted this week. In the competitive and cluttered market for online food delivery, Munchery is distinct in that it sells chef-prepared meals that just need to be heated, or meal kits with recipes and pre-measured ingredients to its members and other… Read More
-
Google Ventures-backed Clear Labs gets $13 million in Series B to nip food recalls in the bud
Clear Labs, a genomic data platform hoping to stop E-coli outbreaks in your favorite burrito chain before they start, has pulled in $13 million in Series B funding to build a next-generation sequencing-based (NGS) microbiome test and grow the business. It’s often hard for food manufacturers to know the origins of an infected batch before it goes out to the public. However, Clear Labs… Read More
-
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and 18 others commit $1 billion to new cleantech fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Vinod Khosla, Jack Ma, John Doerr and 15 other high-profile investors have formed a new venture firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, that will pour at least $1 billion into cleantech companies over the next 20 years. The firm’s goal, according to its own website, will be: “to provide everyone in the world with access to reliable, affordable power, food… Read More
-
Starbucks adds a virtual barrista, sous vide eggs and a Tencent partnership to its menu
At the Starbucks Biennial Investor Conference today, the coffee and retail giant revealed some plans for 2017, including new foods comings to its cafes, and features heading to its incredibly popular mobile app. Notably absent among its announcements were any media and entertainment-related plans. In terms of its tech, Starbucks announced artificial intelligence-enabled features will soon… Read More
-
Crunch Network
Harvesting next-gen technologies for the farm
It’s entirely possible — even probable — that the evolutionary, cutting-edge developments in the 21st century world of agriculture over the past few years have slipped under your radar. Fair enough, you’re busy. We get that. But that doesn’t mean that a massive and relatively stealthy disruption isn’t happening as we speak. Read More
-
Tyson Foods launches new venture fund to back food and agriculture startups
Tyson Foods Inc., one of the world’s largest makers and marketers of meat products, has announced the formation of a $150 million venture capital fund to back food and agriculture startups. According to Tyson’s Executive Vice President of Strategy and New Ventures, Monica McGurk, the fund will seek to invest in startups solving problems around food production, distribution… Read More
-
Amazon launches a beta of Go, a cashier-free, app-based food shopping experience
The straight-forwardly named “Just Walk Out” technology ought to give you a pretty good idea of what Amazon Go is all about. Launching in beta this year to Amazon employees at a single 1,800 square foot location in its native Seattle, Go is a “new kind of store with no checkout required.” Customers use the Go app to enter the store, and once inside, some combination… Read More
-
Foodstantly is transforming how people shop for food in Nigeria
Operating a service delivering food to both consumers and hotel chains and restaurants, Foodstantly is hoping to make the process of shopping for food more transparent and safer for all Nigerians (and ultimately across Africa). Read More
Message Us