Feedr, a food tech startup that delivers healthy and personalised meals to office workers as an alternative to companies setting up their own canteens, has picked up just over £1.5 million in pre-Series A funding.
The round is led by London early-stage venture capital firm Episode 1. Also participating is Brent Hoberman’s Founders Factory, and angel investors Errol Damelin (Wonga founder and renowned fintech investor), Richard Glynn (former Ladbrokes CEO and Founder of Alinsky Partners), and David Pritchard (founder of OpenTable Europe).
Launched in 2016 by Riya Grover and Lyz Swanton, Feedr describes itself as an “intelligent lunch platform” or “cloud canteen”. The startup essentially operates a two-sided marketplace that connects healthy food suppliers with office workers at companies, in addition to arranging delivery.
To do this, Feedr publishes a “unique rotating menu” every day and asks workers to choose what they want to eat by 10.30am. It then pools those orders and sends them to the food suppliers it works with, who are mostly artisan and independent food producers, ready for delivery at lunch time.
The technology behind Feedr handles logistics planning, in terms of predicting and helping to manage demand for each meal on offer from specific suppliers. There is also a large emphasis on personalised recommendations based on the preferences of individual customers and their order history.
Food suppliers include Deliciously Ella, Farmstand, We Grill, Potage, and Maple & Fitz. Feedr works with a number of sub-contracted platforms to do the deliveries.
In a call, Feedr CEO Riya Grover told me the food tech startup has thus far mainly employed a B2B2C strategy by working directly with companies who want to offer their own “cloud canteen” as a perk provided to employees and as part of an employee wellness strategy. This sees each company that signs up with Feedr subsidise the cost of items on the menu so that workers can have a fresh healthy lunch daily for under £5, or cover the cost entirely.
To date, Feedr has fed employees at over 400 companies including AirBnB, Etsy, DHL, and PwC.
Grover also talked up Feedr’s tech that she says enables “dynamic menu building,” something she likened to a Netflix for food. When an employee selects a meal, Feedr feeds back these choices to its algorithm to create a more data-informed menu going forward. In other words, menu choices become more personalised the more employees use Feedr.
More broadly, Grover says Feedr is aiming to cater to three trends: on-demand food delivery, as pioneered by the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats; employee wellbeing as part of a company’s recruitment, retention and broader HR strategy; and the way consumers are becoming more accustomed to greater choice and healthier options.
Meanwhile, I’m told the funding round will be used by Feedr to invest in its technology to improve the online user experience, expand the choice of healthy meals and build out the machine learning that powers personalization. The company also plans to increase its sales force and expand outside of London.
Adds Damien Lane, Partner at Episode 1 Ventures: “Feedr’s strong brand values address the rise of the conscious consumer with a greater awareness of ingredient quality, artisanal producers, food provenance and the impact of food consumption on health. The team brings incredible execution skills with a passion for shaping healthier futures”.
Source: TechCrunch
Tumblr’s app was booted out of the iOS App Store a few days ago due to an issue with child pornography getting its way past the app’s filtering technology, according to a report from CNET, which Tumblr then confirmed.
The app’s disappearance was first spotted on November 16, and Tumblr’s help documentation had also confirmed the company was “working to resolve an issue with its iOS app.” The statement said Tumblr hoped to have it fully functional again soon.
However, Tumblr nor Apple had said what the issue was until CNET confirmed through sources it was related to child pornography.
Tumblr then released a statement which explained that it discovered content during an audit that wasn’t included in the industry database it was using to filter out child sex abuse material from appearing in its app.
That statement reads as follows:
“We’re committed to helping build a safe online environment for all users, and we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to media featuring child sexual exploitation and abuse. As this is an industry-wide problem, we work collaboratively with our industry peers and partners like [the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children] (NCMEC) to actively monitor content uploaded to the platform. Every image uploaded to Tumblr is scanned against an industry database of known child sexual abuse material, and images that are detected never reach the platform. A routine audit discovered content on our platform that had not yet been included in the industry database. We immediately removed this content. Content safeguards are a challenging aspect of operating scaled platforms. We’re continuously assessing further steps we can take to improve and there is no higher priority for our team.”
As of 11/19/18, 7:45pm EST, Tumblr’s help page reads that the company is working to restore its app to the App Store. It also included the above statement.
The company has had issues with being blocked outside the U.S. in the past for hosting adult material, but this is the first time it has been pulled from the App Store due to child porn.
The issue is an example of relying on a database, instead of a combination of algorithms, A.I. technology and human moderation for managing content filtering.
[Disclosure: Tumblr is owned by TechCrunch parent company, Oath]
Source: TechCrunch
500 Startups has set its sights on Vietnam, a historically dormant market that’s recently emerged as one of the most rapidly-expanding tech ecosystems in Southeast Asia.
The Silicon Valley startup accelerator and venture capital fund has raised $14 million for 500 Startups Vietnam, it’s Ho Chi Minh City-based micro-fund focused on Vietnam-headquartered startups or companies catering to the Vietnamese market. The fund launched in March 2016 with a $10 million target to capitalize on a new cohort of internet-era startups.
500 Startups partners Eddie Thai and Binh Tran manage the fund. Thai is the former director of CJ CGV Vietnam, a cinema and film distribution company; and Tran is the co-founder and former chief technology officer of the social influence tool Klout, which sold to Lithium Technologies for $200 million in 2014.
“Several years ago, Vietnam was not an obvious tech investment destination: the country was poor … fraught with bureaucracy, and struggling to create an ecosystem for the few, disconnected founders and even fewer active angels and VCs,” Thai wrote in a blog post. “But entrepreneurial folks did see elements of something special: a fast-growing economy; a substantial supply of low-cost, high-tech talent; and a broad & experienced Vietnamese diaspora increasingly interested to reconnect with and contribute to the country. A new wave of tech founders decided to take the plunge.”
500 Startups Vietnam has funneled a total of $3 million in 36 companies to date. It invests across industries, including e-commerce, edtech and blockchain. The partners plan to back up to 64 more companies, writing checks sized between $100,000 and $250,000.
Investment in Southeast Asia (SEA) has picked up significantly in 2018. According to PitchBook, companies based in SEA have raked in more than 4x capital this year than last. Vietnam, in particular, has become a buzzy destination for VCs. In addition to 500 Startups raise, several new funds have cropped up in the country, like ESP Capital, VinaCapital Ventures, Startup Viet Partners and Zone Startups Vietnam, helping to accelerate investment.
Growth in Vietnam is showing no signs of slowing. The nation’s digital economy is expected to triple in size, accumulating a value of some $33 billion by 2025, according to Google’s third “e-Conomy SEA” report. YoY, its e-commerce market has doubled and the digital advertising, gaming industry, online media and online travel market have seen tremendous development.
“In Vietnam, the internet economy is akin to a dragon being unleashed,” the report states.
Source: TechCrunch
The move is welcomed by Palestine but irks Israel.
Source: CNET
Suppliers have been grappling with a shift in iPhone demand.
Source: CNET
Video chat was always one of Echo Show and Spot’s biggest selling points. But until now, the products have been tethered to Amazon’s own software. This week, however, the company took another big step in its ongoing relationship with Microsoft by adding Skype calling to mix.
Now just about every Echo device past and present are able to make calls using the popular platform. Your Echo/Plus/Dot, et al. will be able to do so via voice using a command like, “Alexa Skype Mom.” Echos with displays, meanwhile, will offer up the full video Skype experience. Users can also ask Alexa to dial a phone number via Skype.
It’s a solid partnership for the two companies. Amazon could use better chat support and Microsoft hasn’t made much headway with Cortana-enabled devices. This is also a bit of a blow for Facebook, whose Portal devices are built almost entirely around the idea of offering a standalone home product for video chat. That’s the best and practically only killer app on Facebook’s offering at present.
The feature can be set up through the Alexa mobile app.
Source: TechCrunch
BFR, the monster rocket that will cost SpaceX roughly $5 billion to develop, has a new name.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted late Monday night that he has renamed the company’s largest (and yet to be built) BFR rocket to Starship. Or more precisely, the spaceship portion will be called Starship. The rocket booster used to propel Starship from Earth’s gravitational grasp will be called Super Heavy.
Starship Super Heavy.
The BFR, meant to stand for Big Falcon Rocket or, ahem, anything else that might spring to mind, is designed to be a sustainable interplanetary spaceship. It will eventually replace SpaceX’s other rockets such as Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
But as one of Musk’s Twitter followers noted, “unless this starship is sent on a mission to another star system it can’t be called a starship.” Musk upped the stakes for an already complex and costly project that is in its earliest stages by responding, “Later versions will,” presumably meaning that the future iterations of the Starship will leave our star system. The closest star system to our sun is the Alpha Centauri system, which is about 4.3 light-years from Earth.
The BFR has not yet been built; it’s in the early stages of development. And it has a long way to go — and by just about every measure, including investment. (Just 5% of SpaceX’s resources are currently dedicated to the BFR, according to Musk.)
Still, the company has made some progress. SpaceX signed Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa to be the first private citizen to take a flight around the Moon in the BFR, a 240,000-mile journey slated for as early as 2023.
SpaceX is on its third design for the rocket, which Musk presented in September with a number of new details.
The design, which depicted a 118-meter long two-stage reusable spaceship capable of taking a 100-metric ton payload to Mars, is “the final iteration in terms of broad architectural designs for BFR,” Musk said in September.
Source: TechCrunch
Fitbit, Apple Watch and Samsung — we take a look at some of the best deals on wearables ahead of Black Friday.
Source: CNET
Timekettle was eager to show us the progress it’s made on the WT2 since it first showed us its wearable translation device at TechCrunch Shenzhen, this time last year. Unlike their 3D printed state at last year’s event, the crowdfunded earpieces are now ready to ship.
They’ve already started going out to early backers and will begin shipping in January to those who pre-order now. The hardware is quite solid. The set up looks a bit like an oversized AirPods case that snaps together magnetically. The idea is to pull it apart and hand one side to the person you want to talk to.
You choose the language via the app and each of you put one in your ear. The two translators are indistinguishable, but for a small line (the “eyebrow”) above the light up word bubble logo used to identify the second unit.
It’s a clever take on wearable translators like the lukewarmly received Google Pixel Buds. The idea is create a translation product that allows wearers to actively engage one another through eye contact and body language — which remain important insight even when you don’t share a language.
It’s a interesting point of friction, however. In plenty of situations, it’s probably a bridge to far to ask a stranger to jam your earpiece in their ear. For, say, business situations, on the other hand, it could ultimately prove a useful tool.
For the former, the company’s got other methods to interact with the product, including app-based communication. There’s also a mode more akin to a walkie-talkie, in which the speaker taps the logo to talk. This bit was design to help avoid picking up ambient noise.
Overall, I was pretty impressed with the experience. The translation isn’t perfect, as evidenced by the above transcript from my conversation with the company’s CEO. But given the ambient noise, a somewhat spotty cellular connection and the fact that my conversation partner insisted on walking around, the WT2 performed admirably.
At present, the translations are somewhat delayed. The earpiece waits for you to finish speaking for a few seconds and then offers the translation in the other ear (as well as yours, to help you learn the language, apparently). The company told me that it plans to offer closer to real-time translation around launch.
Source: TechCrunch
It was originally called the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR.
Source: CNET