Food delivery has a packaging problem, and it’s not just sad fries. For nearly every single order, there is at least one single-use container heading to the landfill or out into the environment. To address that issue, Dispatch Goods has been working on returnable containers designed for restaurants and mail-order food deliveries. After growing a successful program in the Bay Area, the company jumped to the East Coast after closing a $3.7 million fundraising round that will help the company continue expanding. For cofounders Maia Tekle and Lindsey Hoell, it’s […]
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A DoorDash employee went viral for blasting the company’s WeDash program, and the internet snark exploded. WeDash is a program that requires all DoorDash employees to make a delivery once a month. The program was initially launched in 2013 with all proceeds going to charity, but was paused for the pandemic. “As the company grew, the founders wanted everyone to experience different parts of the product so we could get closer to all our audiences and understand how the product works,” a DoorDash spokesperson told CNN. Now, it’s back for […]
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Lyft is getting into the restaurant delivery business through a new partnership with Olo, following in the tire tracks of its rival Uber.
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Marc Lore, the founder of Jet.com, is moving further into the U.S. food delivery scene with a new company called Wonder, an on-demand meal courier platform he calls a “one-stop shop” for prepared meals.
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Waitr is set to acquire a cannabis dispensary compliance and point of sale company, adding to a growing pot-payments empire for the company. The Louisiana-based food and grocery delivery company is also changing its name as part of a $4.7 million legal settlement with California-based Waiter.com. Waitr signed a letter of intent to acquire Retail Innovation Labs Inc., which does business as Cova. Waitr will acquire the company for $90 million in cash and shares in the company. It’s one of several acquisitions the company has tackled recently, all of […]
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This year may go down as the year of the ghost kitchen, but 2022 is looking pretty ghostly, too. As evidence, ghost-kitchen operator Kitchen United opened its ninth location in Santa Monica, Calif., and inked a new national deal with Fuku. Kitchen United CEO Michael Montagano said its latest shared-kitchen facility embodies the company’s ghost kitchen thesis of operating not in some light industrial wasteland, but alongside other restaurants, retail and residential spaces. There are few places as dense with all three than the new location at Third Street Promenade, […]
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Ottonomy is approaching robotic delivery with a mind toward scaling where it can operate now as the broader robotic delivery industry matures. CEO Ritukar Vijay has a deep background in robotics, working for nearly 14 years on unmanned aerial drones, warehouse logistics robots and robotic vehicles as well. He said he and his fellow cofounders were working on autonomous cars when he realized the promise of driverless cars was still far off. “We came to the realization that autonomous cars will take some time to hit Main Street,” said Vijay. […]
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As an opening salvo, the company is telling users their ‘diner impact score’, or how much they’ve saved themselves and restaurants by ordering through ChowNow. It’s all part of a plan to build a digital marketplace to rival those operated by companies such as DoorDash or Uber Eats.
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WoodSpoon, the company that connects home chefs with hungry diners, is launching a B2B catering service. Founder Oren Saar said clients are using the service to lure work-from-home employees back into the office.
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Serve Robotics just raised $13 million in a seed extension round to grow its sidewalk delivery bot operations in new markets and with new partners. The company was built inside Postmates under the company’s Postmates X division that explored cutting-edge technologies. When Postmates acquired a company called Lox in 2017, Dr. Ali Kashani came on board and brought degrees in computer vision and 3D imaging. He combined that with Postmates delivery data and co-founded the company’s robotics division. He said it was operations first for the adorable but uniquely rugged […]
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