Monthly Archives: October 2020

News: Daily Crunch: Under Armour is selling MyFitnessPal

• October 30, 2020
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Under Armour gives up on one of its big acquisitions, Uber Eats faces complaints over its free delivery policy for Black restaurants and Facebook takes another step to limit QAnon-related content. This is your Daily Crunch for October 30, 2020. The big story: Under Armour is selling MyFitnessPal Five years after Under Armour acquired MyFitnessPal

Under Armour gives up on one of its big acquisitions, Uber Eats faces complaints over its free delivery policy for Black restaurants and Facebook takes another step to limit QAnon-related content. This is your Daily Crunch for October 30, 2020.

The big story: Under Armour is selling MyFitnessPal

Five years after Under Armour acquired MyFitnessPal for $475 million, it’s selling the diet- and exercise-tracking app to investment firm Francisco Partners for $345 million. It’s also shutting down the Endomondo platform, which it acquired at the same time.

Under Armour says it’s making these moves so that it can focus its brand on its “target consumer – the Focused Performer.” However, the diminished price suggested there may be more going on here, perhaps the business likely suffering as companies like Peloton and Apple (with its upcoming Fitness+ service) hog the spotlight in the casual fitness category.

It’s also worth noting that Under Armour isn’t completely giving up on digital products — it will continue operating the MapMyFitness platform, including MapMyRun and MapMyRide.

The tech giants

Uber Eats faces discrimination allegations over free delivery from Black-owned restaurants — Uber says it has received more than 8,500 demands for arbitration as a result of it ditching delivery fees for some Black-owned restaurants via Uber Eats.

Facebook is limiting distribution of ‘save our children’ hashtag over QAnon ties — Over the past several months, these terms have provided a kind of innocuous cover for the popular online conspiracy theory.

Reliance Jio Platforms tops 400M subscribers, explores expanding services outside of India — The Facebook- and Google-backed telecom operator said its finances have improved, despite the pandemic.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Daimler invests in lidar company Luminar in push to bring autonomous trucks to highways — Luminar will also become a publicly traded company through its merger with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos.

Nestlé acquires healthy meal startup Freshly for up to $1.5B — Founded in 2015, Freshly is a New York City-based startup that delivers healthy meals to your home in weekly orders, which can then be prepared in a few minutes via microwave or oven.

B8ta remains bullish on IRL shopping with new acquisition — B8ta offers shelf space to unique digital products.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

New GV partner Terri Burns has a simple investment thesis: Gen Z — Burns is the firm’s youngest partner and the first Black woman to hold the role.

Is the Great 2020 Tech Rally slowing? — What happens if COVID-19, unrest and hyped valuations collide?

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Teachers are leaving schools. Will they come to startups next? — Teacher departures are a loss for public schools, but an opportunity for startups racing to win a share of the changing teacher economy.

Big tech’s ‘blackbox’ algorithms face regulatory oversight under EU plan — Major internet platforms will be required to open up their algorithms to regulatory oversight under proposals European lawmakers are set to introduce next month.

AOL founder Steve Case, involved early in Section 230, says it’s time to change it — “Having more of a dialogue between the innovators and the policymakers is actually going to be critical in this internet third wave,” Case told us.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: iPhones can now tell blind users where and how far away people are

• October 30, 2020
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Apple has packed an interesting new accessibility feature into the latest beta of iOS: a system that detects the presence of and distance to people in the view of the iPhone’s camera, so blind users can social distance effectively, among many other things. The feature emerged from Apple’s ARKit, for which the company developed “people

Apple has packed an interesting new accessibility feature into the latest beta of iOS: a system that detects the presence of and distance to people in the view of the iPhone’s camera, so blind users can social distance effectively, among many other things.

The feature emerged from Apple’s ARKit, for which the company developed “people occlusion,” which detects people’s shapes and lets virtual items pass in front of and behind them. The accessibility team realized that this, combined with the accurate distance measurements provided by the lidar units on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, could be an extremely useful tool for anyone with a visual impairment.

Of course during the pandemic one immediately thinks of the idea of keeping six feet away from other people. But knowing where others are and how far away is a basic visual task that we use all the time to plan where we walk, which line we get in at the store, whether to cross the street, and so on.

The new feature, which will be part of the Magnifier app, uses the lidar and wide-angle camera of the Pro and Pro Max, giving feedback to the user in a variety of ways.

The lidar in the iPhone 12 Pro shows up in this infrared video. Each dot reports back the precise distance of what it reflects off of.

First, it tells the user whether there are people in view at all. If someone is there, it will then say how far away the closest person is in feet or meters, updating regularly as they approach or move further away. The sound corresponds in stereo to the direction the person is in the camera’s view.

Second, it allows the user to set tones corresponding to certain distances. For example, if they set the distance at six feet, they’ll hear one tone if a person is more than six feet away, another if they’re inside that range. After all, not everyone wants a constant feed of exact distances if all they care about is staying two paces away.

The third feature, perhaps extra useful for folks who have both visual and hearing impairments, is a haptic pulse that goes faster as a person gets closer.

Last is a visual feature for people who need a little help discerning the world around them, an arrow that points to the detected person on the screen. Blindness is a spectrum, after all, and any number of vision problems could make a person want a bit of help in that regard.

The system requires a decent image on the wide-angle camera, so it won’t work in pitch darkness. And while the restriction of the feature to the high end of the iPhone line reduces the reach somewhat, the constantly increasing utility of such a device as a sort of vision prosthetic likely makes the investment in the hardware more palatable to people who need it.

This is far from the first tool like this — many phones and dedicated devices have features for finding objects and people, but it’s not often that it comes baked in as a standard feature.

People detection should be available to iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max running the iOS 14.2 release candidate that was just made available today. Details will presumably appear soon on Apple’s dedicated iPhone accessibility site.

News: Q3 earnings find Apple and Google looking to the future for hardware rebounds

• October 30, 2020
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“5G is a once-in-a-decade kind of opportunity,” Tim Cook told the media during the Q&A portion of Apple’s Q3 earnings call. “And we could not be more excited to hit the market exactly when we did.” The truth of the matter is its timing was a mixed bag. Apple was, by some accounts, late to

“5G is a once-in-a-decade kind of opportunity,” Tim Cook told the media during the Q&A portion of Apple’s Q3 earnings call. “And we could not be more excited to hit the market exactly when we did.”

The truth of the matter is its timing was a mixed bag. Apple was, by some accounts, late to 5G. By the time the company finally announced that it was adding the technology across its lineup of iPhone 12 variants, much of its competition had already beat the company to the punch. Of course, that’s not a huge surprise. Apple’s strategy is rarely a rush to be first.

5G networks are only really starting to come into their own now. Even today, there are still wide swaths of users who will have to default to an LTE connection the majority of the time they use their handsets. The arrival of 5G on the iPhone was really as much about future-proofing this year’s models as anything. Consumers are holding onto phones longer, and in the three or four years before it’s time for another upgrade, the 5G maps will look very different.

Clearly, the new iPhone didn’t hit the market exactly when Apple had hoped; the pandemic saw to that. Manufacturing bottlenecks in Asia delayed the iPhone 12’s launch by a month. That’s going to have an impact on the bottom line of your quarterly earnings. The company saw a 20% drop for the quarter, year-over-year. That’s hugely significant, causing the company’s stock to drop more than 4% in extended trading.

Apple’s diverse portfolio helped curb some of those revenue slides. While the pandemic has generally had a profound impact on consumer spending on “non-essentials,” changing where and how we work has helped bolster Mac and iPad sales, which were up 28% and 46%, respectively, year-over-year. It wasn’t enough to completely stop the iPhone stumble, but it certainly brings the importance of a diverse hardware portfolio into sharp relief.

China was a big issue for the company this time around — and the lack of a new, 5G-enabled iPhone was a big contributor. In greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), the company saw a 28% drop in sales. There are a number of reasons to be hopeful about iPhone sales in Q4, however.

As I noted this morning, smartphone shipments were down almost across the board in China for Q3, per new figures from Canalys. Much of that can be chalked up to Huawei’s ongoing issues with the U.S. government. Long the dominant manufacturer in mainland China, the company has been hamstrung by, among other things, a ban on access to Android and other U.S.-made technologies. Apple’s numbers remained relatively steady compared to the competition and Huawei’s issues could present a big hole in the market. With 5G on its side, this next quarter could prove a banner year for the company.

News: Google reveals a new Windows zero-day bug it says is under active attack

• October 30, 2020
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Google has dropped details of a previously undisclosed vulnerability in Windows, which it says hackers are actively exploiting. As a result, Google gave Microsoft just a week to fix the vulnerability. That deadline came and went, and Google published details of the vulnerability this afternoon. The vulnerability has no name but is labeled CVE-2020-17087, and

Google has dropped details of a previously undisclosed vulnerability in Windows, which it says hackers are actively exploiting. As a result, Google gave Microsoft just a week to fix the vulnerability. That deadline came and went, and Google published details of the vulnerability this afternoon.

The vulnerability has no name but is labeled CVE-2020-17087, and affects at least Windows 7 and Windows 10.

Google’s Project Zero, the elite group of security bug hunters which made the discovery, said the bug allows an attacker to escalate their level of user access in Windows. Attackers are using the Windows vulnerability in conjunction with a separate bug in Chrome, which Google disclosed and fixed last week. This new bug allows an attacker to escape Chrome’s sandbox, normally isolated from other apps, and run malware on the operating system.

In a tweet, Project Zero’s technical lead Ben Hawkes said Microsoft plans to issue a patch on November 10.

Microsoft didn’t independently confirm this date when asked, but said in a statement: “Microsoft has a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues and update impacted devices to protect customers. While we work to meet all researchers’ deadlines for disclosures, including short-term deadlines like in this scenario, developing a security update is a balance between timeliness and quality, and our ultimate goal is to help ensure maximum customer protection with minimal customer disruption.”

But it’s unclear who the attackers are or their motives. Google’s director of threat intelligence Shane Huntley said that the attacks were “targeted” and not related to the U.S. election.

A Microsoft spokesperson also added that the reported attack is “very limited and targeted in nature, and we have seen no evidence to indicate widespread usage.”

It’s the latest in a list of major flaws affecting Windows this year. Microsoft said in January that the National Security Agency helped find a cryptographic bug in Windows 10, though there was no evidence of exploitation. But in June and September, Homeland Security issued alerts over two “critical” Windows bugs — one which had the ability to spread across the internet, and the other could have gained complete access to an entire Windows network.

Updated with comment from Microsoft.

News: Facebook hits pause on algorithmic recommendations for political and social issue groups

• October 30, 2020
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With just days to go before the U.S. election, Facebook quietly suspended one of its most worrisome features. During Wednesday’s Senate hearing Senator Ed Markey asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about reports that his company has long known its group recommendations push people toward more extreme content. Zuckerberg responded that the company had actually disabled

With just days to go before the U.S. election, Facebook quietly suspended one of its most worrisome features.

During Wednesday’s Senate hearing Senator Ed Markey asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about reports that his company has long known its group recommendations push people toward more extreme content. Zuckerberg responded that the company had actually disabled that feature for certain groups — a fact Facebook had not previously announced.

“Senator, we have taken the step of stopping recommendations in groups for all political content or social issue groups as a precaution for this,” Zuckerberg told Markey.

TechCrunch reached out to Facebook with questions about what kind of groups would be affected and how long the recommendations would be suspended at the time but did not receive an immediate response. Facebook first confirmed the change to BuzzFeed News on Friday.

“This is a measure we put in place in the lead up to Election Day,” Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told TechCrunch in an email. “We will assess when to lift them afterwards, but they are temporary.”

The cautionary step will disable recommendations for political and social issue groups as well as any new groups that are created during the window of time. Facebook declined to provide additional details about the kinds of groups that will and won’t be affected by the change or what went into the decision.

Researchers who focus on extremism have long been concerned that algorithmic recommendations on social networks push people toward more extreme content. Facebook has been aware of this phenomenon since at least 2016, when an internal presentation on extremism in Germany observed that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools.”

In Facebook’s case, recommendations can usher users with extreme views and violent ideas into social groups where they can organize and amplify dangerous ideologies. Before being banned by the social network, the violent far-right group the Proud Boys relied on Facebook groups for its relatively sophisticated national recruitment operation. Members of the group that plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer also used Facebook Groups to organize, according to an FBI affidavit.

While it sounds like Facebook’s decision to toggle some group recommendations off is temporary, the company has made an unprecedented flurry of choices to limit dangerous content in recent months, possibly in fear that the 2020 election will again plunge it into political controversy. Over the last three months alone, Facebook has cracked down on QAnon, militias, and language used by the Trump campaign that could result in voter intimidation — all surprising postures considering its longstanding inaction and deep fear of decisions that could make be perceived as partisan.

After years of relative inaction, the company now appears to be taking some of the extremism it has long incubated seriously, though the coming days are likely to put its new set of protective policies to the test.

News: Dear Sophie: Would a Trump win abolish the H-1B visa lottery?

• October 30, 2020
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Proposed changes to the H-1B lottery are expected to be published in the Federal Register next week and DHS will accept comments from the public on this proposal for 30 days after that.

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie:

I heard the randomness of the H-1B lottery is going away. What will this mean for our startup’s ability to get an H-1B visa for one of our co-founders?

— Curious in Cupertino

Dear Curious:

Lots going on in immigration this week (as usual!). First, good news for green card applicants: the November 2020 Visa Bulletin did not change from October, when the dates for filing for Adjustment of Status sped up significantly for individuals born in India and China.

About the H-1B lottery: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), this week proposed a rule that ends the random H-1B lottery; instead, USCIS will determine who can apply for an H-1B visa based on the highest salary. DHS says this change will “incentivize employers to offer higher wages.”

The number of H-1B visas issued each year is capped at 85,000. Currently, when demand for H-1Bs outstrips the annual supply, which has been the case since 2013, USCIS uses an electronic random lottery to determine who can apply for an H-1B. For the first time this year, sponsoring companies electronically registered each H-1B candidate for the lottery in March.

News: Join Greylock’s Asheem Chandna on November 5 at noon PST/3 pm EST/8 pm GMT to discuss the future of enterprise and cybersecurity investing

• October 30, 2020
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The world of enterprise software and cybersecurity has taken multiple body blows since COVID-19 demolished the in-person office, flinging employees across the world and forcing companies to adapt to an all-remote productivity model. The shift has required companies to rethink not only collaboration software, but also the infrastructure that powers it and the best way

The world of enterprise software and cybersecurity has taken multiple body blows since COVID-19 demolished the in-person office, flinging employees across the world and forcing companies to adapt to an all-remote productivity model. The shift has required companies to rethink not only collaboration software, but also the infrastructure that powers it and the best way to protect assets once their security perimeters have been destroyed.

The pandemic has also dramatically increased the usage of digital services, forcing cloud providers to keep up with crushing demands for performance and reliability.

In short — it’s never been a better time to be an enterprise investor (or, possibly, a founder).

So I’m excited to announce our next guest in our Extra Crunch Live interview series: Asheem Chandna from Greylock, one of the top enterprise investors of the past two decades who has worked with multiple important founding teams from whiteboard to IPO. We’re scheduled for Thursday, November 5 at noon PST/3 p.m. EST/8 p.m. GMT (check that daylight savings time math!)

Login details are below the fold for EC members, and if you don’t have an Extra Crunch membership, click through to sign up.

For nearly two decades, Asheem Chandna has invested in enterprise and security startups at Greylock, with massive investment wins in Palo Alto Networks, AppDynamics and Sumo Logic. These days, he continues to invest in cybersecurity with companies like Awake Security and Abnormal Security, data platforms like Rubrik and Delphix, and the stealthy search engine company Neeva. As a leading early-stage investor and mentor in the space, he’s seen a multitude of companies transition from inception to product-market fit to IPO.

We’ll talk about what all the turbulence in enterprise means for the future of startups in the space, how cybersecurity is evolving given the new threat landscape and also discuss a bit about how the public markets and their aggressive multiples for Silicon Valley enterprise startups is changing the strategy of venture capitalists. Plus, we’ll talk about company building, developing founders as leaders and more.

Join us next week with Asheem on Thursday, November 5 at noon PST/3 p.m. EST/8 p.m. GMT. Login details and calendar invite are below.

Event Details

News: The scooter battle for New York City is on

• October 30, 2020
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New York City, one of the most coveted shared micromobility markets in the industry, has released its request for interest in its electric scooter pilot, officially kicking off what promises to be a competitive battle among companies vying for a chance to operate their businesses in the city. The city also released a request for

New York City, one of the most coveted shared micromobility markets in the industry, has released its request for interest in its electric scooter pilot, officially kicking off what promises to be a competitive battle among companies vying for a chance to operate their businesses in the city.

The city also released a request for expressions of interest, or “RFEI,” for companies that provide ancillary services to the electric scooter industry, such as data aggregation and analysis, on-street charging and parking vendors, safe-riding training courses as well as scooter collection and impound services.

New York is on the brink of providing a new way for residents to get around and supporting a burgeoning industry in the process. Just about every major e-scooter company — a list that includes Bird, Lime, Spin and Voi — as well as a number of other lesser-known players — are planning to apply for the permit, each one attempting to win over the city with promises of best practices and their own special brand of operations. Statements emailed to TechCrunch provide a forecast of how these competition will shake out. Companies like Lime and Voi touted their experience.

“We’re excited about working with the city to craft a world-class e-scooter program that prioritizes safety, accessibility and equity,” Phil Jones, senior director for government relations at Lime, said in an emailed statement. “As we’ve learned from operating in global cities like LA, Chicago, Paris and Rome as well as more than one hundred cities around the world, e-scooters can help New York build a more resilient and adaptable transportation system. As New Yorkers look for new ways to get around, e-scooters will provide an ideal option for those looking to travel around the City while remaining socially-distant.”

Voi specifically pointed to its know-how scaling in Europe as proof that it was a worthy choice.

“From its growing cycling infrastructure to its recent reimagination of public space into open streets and outdoor dining, New York is leading a nationwide transformation of city streets,” Voi co-founder and CEO Fredrik Hjelm said. “After helping more than 50 European cities rethink their relationship with the car, we’re hoping to make NYC our base in the U.S.”

Bird promised to prioritize equity, safety, access and effective parking solutions. Spin went even further and made recommendations of what the program should look like; a tactic aimed at rooting out some possible contenders.

Spin said it suggested the NYC’s transportation agency require scooter companies to deploy in so-called equity zones and reduce fare for low-income residents by at least 50% and provide a means to rent the devices without a smartphone. Spin also says the program should place a 2,000 scooter cap per vendor with only three to four companies receiving a permit. It also suggests the city require adaptive scooter devices, lock-to tech that ensures scooters are affixed to bike infrastructure and that companies use a W-2 workforce with requirement to hire locally.

The backstory

The New York City Council approved in late June a bill that required the New York Department of Transportation to create a pilot program for the operation of shared electric scooters in the city. The DOT had until October to issue a request for proposals to participate in a shared e-scooter pilot program.

The pilot program must launch by March 1, 2021. The New York City Council will continue to work with DOT on determining where to set up the pilot. If the pilot program limits the service area it could prove a failure, several e-scooter companies and advocates previously told TechCrunch.

Manhattan is off limits, leaving four other boroughs, including the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Proposed legislation to allow scooters was first introduced more than two years ago. However, a pilot program wasn’t technically feasible until April 2020 when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill to legalize the use of throttle-based electric scooters and bikes in the state. Under the state law, shared scooters will not be allowed in Manhattan and a pilot program must be approved by the New York City Council before shared scooter services can operate in the remaining boroughs.

The proposed local law places some requirements on how the pilot program is structured. Neighborhoods that lack access to existing bike-share programs will be given priority in determining the geographic boundaries of the pilot program. Companies that receive permits will be required to meet operating rules, such as providing accessible scooter options.

Other battlegrounds

New York City isn’t the only important market in the world for shared electric scooter companies. Several other large cities, notably Chicago, Seattle and Paris, have completed the application process for pilot programs and been granted permits. Paris had as many as 16 companies vying for a permit to operate scooters there. The city, following a seven-month tender process, granted Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility permits. Bird, which just a year ago made a big bet on the French market and announced plans to open its biggest European office in Paris, lost its bid. Bird said at the time that it wanted to hire 1,000 people by mid-2021. Bolt, Comodule, Spin, Voi and Wind were also denied permits to operate in Paris.

In August, Chicago issued permits to Bird, Lime and Spin for its second pilot program. This time around Chicago is limiting scooter use to 15 mph between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. And there are a few areas, like the Lakefront Trail, where scooters are prohibited. Each scooter company is limited to no more than 3,333 devices, 50% of which must be deployed with an equity priority area. New to the second pilot is a requirement that all e-scooters must have locks that require riders to secure the scooter to a fixed object to end their trip.

With so many large markets now decided, just a couple of big targets remain, notably London along with New York. London’s transportation agency announced this summer that it would allow scooter companies to operate in the city. However, permits have yet to be granted. Bird, Bolt (the ridesharing startup out of Estonia), Lime, Neuron Mobility, Tier, Voi and Zipp Mobility have all expressed interest in the London scooter program.

News: Logistics and truck rental giant Ryder joins the businesses making the jump into venture capital in 2020

• October 30, 2020
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While the launch of a $50 million venture capital fund by the shipping, logistics, and truck rental company Ryder System may have seemed like an odd strategic move, it’s actually the culmination of roughly three years of investment activity from the Florida-based company. Ryder’s push to create its own venture fund is actually part of

While the launch of a $50 million venture capital fund by the shipping, logistics, and truck rental company Ryder System may have seemed like an odd strategic move, it’s actually the culmination of roughly three years of investment activity from the Florida-based company.

Ryder’s push to create its own venture fund is actually part of a broader trend among corporations who have used the COVID-19 epidemic in the US as an opportunity to start investing in startups — even as a large portion of the population struggles to find work.

And it’s one that is vital for a company like Ryder, which has seen investments into new technology in its once sleepy little industry top $6 billion, according to company executives. That’s a massive figure promoting new tech development in a business where Excel spreadsheets used to be considered state of the art.

Ryder’s not alone in recognizing the need to get in front of technological innovations before an upstart comes along and puts well-established businesses in the rearview mirror.

Over the first half of 2020, 368 corporations made their first investments into startup companies, according to data from the industry analytics provider, Global Corporate Venturing. It’s a broad shift from the last corporate investment boom and bust period twenty years ago where large corporations were some of the last investors in the tech industry and the first to pull their capital out.

And the amount of first time investors into corporate venturing is nearly double the previous surge in corporate backing in the third quarter of 2019, when 177 new companies made their first investments in venture capital.

Ryder has worked with the venture firms Autotech Ventures and the corporate innovation and accelerator Plug and Play as a limited partner, but the new $50 million fund is its first direct investment vehicle for venture.

“We had a strategic directive from our board of directors and our CEO to begin to look at the disruption confronting our industry and to understand better how to navigate those waters,” said Karen Jones, the executive vice president and head of new product development at the logistics company. “Everybody was reading all about blockchain and automation and electric vehicles ad autonomous vehicles and asset sharing.” 

Transportation and logistics historically didn’t cross paths much with the tech industry — but the advent of globally connected mobile devices; improved, miniaturized sensing technologies; increasing vehicular automation; and accelerating delivery demands from customers have pushed the “sleepy little industry” as Jones called into a period of hyper-adoption.

“There’s just been a ripe opportunity in our particular industry to disrupt it with the technology that’s available,” said Jones. “[And] if we’re going to be disrupted let’s get in front of it and turn it into an opportunity instead of a threat.”

At Ryder, the emphasis seems to be on creating an investment structure with as much flexibility as possible.

The venture firm doesn’t have a cap on its commitments to deals. The only real solid commitment is that it’s looking to spend $50 million over the next five years.

The company will likely invest in technologies like: last-mile deliveries, asset sharing, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and next generation data, analytics, and machine learning technologies, Jones said. But even there, Ryder doesn’t want to limit itself.

“We want to entertain other thoughts. Maybe we haven’t thought of everything,” Jones said. 

There are four people on the company’s investment team working alongside Jones: Rich Mohr, the chief technology officer for fleet management; Kendra Philips, the chief technology officer for the company’s supply chain business; Bob Brunn, the vice president of investor relations and corporate strategy; and Mike Plasencia, the director of finance for the company.

They’ll report up to the CEO and CFO and confer with presidents of different business units on potential portfolio investments, Jones said.

Companies in the portfolio will be judged both on their potential strategic value to the company and on their potential for economic returns, said Jones.

For startups, that potentially means access to Ryder’s 50,000 customers. “The ability to help a startup test out and prove their technology and help us improve efficiencies is a great benefit to both sides,” Jones said. 

News: Nestlé acquires healthy meal startup Freshly for up to $1.5B

• October 30, 2020
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Nestlé USA just announced that it has acquired Freshly for $1.5 billion — $950 million plus potential earnouts of up to $550 million based on future growth. Founded in 2015, Freshly is a New York City-based startup that offers healthy meals delivered to your home in weekly orders, then prepared in a few minutes via

Nestlé USA just announced that it has acquired Freshly for $1.5 billion — $950 million plus potential earnouts of up to $550 million based on future growth.

Founded in 2015, Freshly is a New York City-based startup that offers healthy meals delivered to your home in weekly orders, then prepared in a few minutes via microwave or oven,  So you get the benefit of fresh, healthy meals but — unlike signing up with a meal kit startup — you don’t have to spend a lot of time cooking them yourself.

If anything, this sounds even more appealing now, as so many of us are spending most of our time at home, doing our best to cook for ourselves. According to Nestlé’s press release, Freshly is now shipping more than 1 million meals per week across 48 states, with forecasted sales of $430 million for 2020.

The startup raised a total of $107 million from investors including Highland Capital Partners, White Star Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Nestlé itself, which led the Series C in 2017. Today’s announcement describes the earlier investment as giving the food and beverage giant a 16% stake in Freshly and serving as “a strategic move to evaluate and test the burgeoning market.”

“Consumers are embracing ecommerce and eating at home like never before,” said Nestlé USA Chairman and CEO Steve Presley in a statement. “It’s an evolution brought on by the pandemic but taking hold for the long term. Freshly is an innovative, fast-growing, food-tech startup, and adding them to the portfolio accelerates our ability to capitalize on the new realities in the U.S. food market and further positions Nestlé to win in the future.”

In a note to customers, Freshly co-founder and CEO Michael Wystrach said that as a result of the acquisition, his team has plans to triple the number of menu items offered each week. Beyond that, however, he suggested that things won’t change too dramatically:

I can assure you that your meals, pricing, and subscription will remain just as you know them. Freshly will continue to operate as a standalone business to accomplish our core mission to remove the barriers to healthy eating with convenient, nutritious and delicious meal solutions, backed by the power of Nestlé to open new doors for a fresher, faster food delivery to your door. We will continue to maintain our own strict standards and maintain complete control of our products. Our meals will not be changing, and there are no plans to change ingredients or integrate Nestlé products into Freshly meals, but we are excited about potential opportunities for the future.