Zume
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Remembering the startups we lost in 2023
Not every startup collapse is an FTX or Theranos. They don’t all burn so brightly and explode so spectacularly. More often than not, there won’t be some high-profile court case and prison time. Amanda Seyfried isn’t going to play you in the made for Hulu movie. The story of most…
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Winging it
Once again, your intrepid robotics reporter finds himself in the warm embrace of the Bay. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the warmest I was ever embraced was early summer in Santa Clara. I’m writing this from a juice place in Palo Alto (living the dream), having finished a pair of back-to-back…
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Business, school
Before we get started, two quick notes. We’re launching Actuator as a newsletter in a few short weeks! Make sure you’re in on the ground floor by signing up (for free!) over here. Also, the powers that be helpfully noted that I’ve not taken any days off this year, so…
Plastics are bad, m’kay, and a lot of the world is pretty god-awful at reducing, re-using and recycling. Single-use plastics are among the worst environmental evils out there, and Zume…
Before leaving SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza in November 2018, co-founder Julia Collins knew what her next move would be: climate-friendly food. Today, Collins is announcing Planet FWD’s $2.7 million seed round…
As a top manager leaves amid fundraising woes, SoftBank’s vision looks dimmer — and schadenfreude abounds
Every once in a while, an organization implodes so fantastically that it’s hard in retrospect to understand why another outcome once seemed possible. With every passing day, SoftBank — which…
Are January layoffs just a few post-WeWork jitters? TechCrunch has found itself writing about layoffs at a few notable tech companies this week — and not just SoftBank-backed ones. The…
Layoffs in the technology and venture-backed worlds continued today, as 23andMe confirmed to CNBC that it laid off around 100 people, or about 14% of its formerly 700-person staff. The…
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Tech layoffs rise as cost-cutting comes into vogue
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today, we’re taking digging into two trends: recent layoffs at various domestic unicorns and secondly, how those layoffs match a recent uptick in austerity across the technology industry itself. It…
Changing from the highest-flying conglomerate and most famous capital vehicle to troubled icons of misplaced exuberance, it’s tough to be SoftBank and its Vision Fund today. Despite the occasional good…
SignalFire, a six-year-old, San Francisco-based venture firm that prides itself on mining what it says is more actionable data about, well, the world, has just raised a pair of funds…
Pizza Hut this morning announced plans to pilot Zume’s signature round pizza boxes. Testing for now will be extremely limited — in fact, it’s only happening at a single location…
SoftBank Group, the multibillion-dollar Japanese technology conglomerate and investment firm, has put together a bid that would save WeWork parent company The We Company, just weeks before the co-working real…
Zume first made waves by entering the scene as a robotic pizza company. Since then, however, the SF Bay Area startup has taken pains to demonstrate that it has its…
Zume Inc. (they of the robotic pizza) has acquired Southern California-based Pivot, designer of plant-based packaging material. Along with the deal, Zume will be opening a 70,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in…
Throughout October, it seemed that among others in tech, SoftBank might be forced to rethink its cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, or MBS, who has…
Zume, the robotics and logistics company that got its start slinging pizza, just raised $375 million from SoftBank, the WSJ first reported. Another firm is also looking to invest an additional…
Earlier this year, Zume made it pretty clear that it was exploring life beyond pizza. Coffee, steamed buns and frozen yogurt have all been floated as possibilities for the newly…
Launch a fleet of robotic pizza vans and you’re going to get painted as the robotic pizza company. It’s a hard label to shake off — but as far as…
Zume has long had grand ambitions for its food automation service, and the Mountain View-based startup is now $48 million closer to that goal, courtesy of a new series B.…
Today, in a world of bacon-wrapped crust and custom-modified Chevys with pizza warmers, being excited about pizza is just not as easy as it used to be. Zume Pizza founder…
