The best-funded online retailer that aimed to cut out brand premiums and sell everything direct-to-consumer has shut down. They had raised $290 million, mostly from SoftBank, but couldn’t get the economics of the business to work. Some of the investment […]
From True Ventures, investors in Blue Bottle Coffee, Fitbit, Madison Reed, Peloton, and Ring. “From these experiences, we’ve developed a list of attributes they embody that we find essential when evaluating investment opportunities in next-generation brands and products.” | learn more
It’s hard not to pay attention to, and feel a bit bad about, product packing these days. “There are at least seven recently-funded startups in the eco-packing space that have individually raised $20 million or more, per Crunchbase data. We […]
“Walmart is betting on a future where its giant stores will quickly get groceries to your door, replace the doctor’s office and rent out computing power to passing drones and autonomous cars.” | learn more
Is it 35% or 5%? “Amazon is a big company, but what does that mean? How big is ‘big’? What does ‘dominant’ or ‘scale’ or ‘huge’ mean when US retail is $6 trillion every year?” Written by VC Ben Evans. | learn […]
“Dave Clark has twin challenges: ensuring packages arrive on time and keeping workers safe.” He’s also the guy who fired FedEx. | learn more
From Deloitte: “With the resale market growing 21x faster than the retail apparel market in the past three years, we wondered if holiday shoppers would be willing to gift a used item. We found that just over a quarter (27 […]
The list includes all the big ones since 2015, including commentary. Turns out high debt + online competition + lack of tech investment is a bad recipe for solvency. | learn more
“Amazon has become a lucrative place to do business for many Hasidic Jews, offering anonymity to a largely insular community and allowing women to work from home.” | learn more
“When it comes to creating a great D2C brand, there are so many little moving parts to consider. So we thought it would be worth checking in with marketers who have remarkable D2C experience for their advice on the subject. […]