Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: February 2015
February was an exceptionally lucrative month with a reported $1.8B invested into the food tech sector through 19 acquisitions and 13 fundraises.

Barnraiser Helps The Food Lab’s Startups Build Community & Get Funded
Participants in The Food Lab’s Challenge Prize can now launch Barnraiser campaigns to raise awareness, build customers and raise funds to grow their businesses.

Reconnecting Diners & Chefs to Ensure a Better Food Future
Feastly founder Noah Karesh is bringing the sharing economy to food and empowering chefs and eaters to celebrate real, authentic food experiences.

Linking Gardeners & Urban Farmers to Ensure Fresh Food for All
Ryan Albritton believes enabling gardeners and urban farmers to be co-cultivators of the same farm is key to ramping up fresh food production.

Food Book Fair is back for a fourth year April 10-12 in Brooklyn, New York. Snag your tickets for all-star speakers, dynamic panel discussions, co-curated programming, a foodieodicals fest, a pop-up bookstore and much, much more. 15% off with code "FTC15" here.

Applications Open for Feeding the Accelerator
Presented by The USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015, the accelerator will help 8-12 rising food-tech startups grow through workshops, seminars, lectures and discussions with food luminaries.

Here's Why this Seattle Entrepreneur Launched a New Startup a Month After Her First Failed - Upstart
Farmstr founder Janelle Maiocco isn't ready to give up on her dream of helping farmers — and now she says she has found a better way to do it.

Announcing Toklas Society Mentorship Program - Toklas Society
The six month-long program hopes to give women in hospitality the courage, resources, and experience to make a career change, start their own business, or get a promotion.

ShopWings Aims to Make a Fortune by Doing Your Grocery Shopping - Financial Review
The Australian software startup lets users order groceries from many supermarkets and it delivers within two hours.

Amazon Launches Local Grocery Delivery KiranaNow in Bangalore - Medianama
The service is in a pilot stage in Bangalore, and Amazon is likely to launch it in other cities in the future.

Start-ups in E-commerce Logistics Gather Pace - Live Mint
Mint profiles four start-ups in the logistics space that provide support, delivery and warehousing services to e-commerce companies. 

Membership-based Delivery Services are Beginning to Disrupt the $600 Billion-a-Year Grocery Industry - Business Insider
Membership grocery services help secure consumers as repeat customers and allow companies to lower individual shipping fees on every order.

Online Grocery from the Shopper's POV - Brick Meets Click
Word of mouth is how most shoppers learn about services, which makes the customer experience extremely important for growth.

Amazon Launches Home Ordering Kit - Menafm.com
The retail giant unveiled its latest effort to bring more convenience to online shopping: the WiFi-connected Amazon Dash Button. 

Tech Spin-off From Spice Maker McCormick Puts CIO in the CEO Seat - Wall Street Journal
Jerry Wolfe  is now CEO of Vivanda Inc., a tech startup that helps consumers figure out what they want to eat for dinner.

Restaurant Industry Adopts Better Technology for Better Food - Food Tank
Improvonia saw how painful ordering was for restaurants and suppliers, so he designed an app to make the process easier. 

Food Delivery Service ChowNow Supports Both Google Wallet & Apple Pay - Eater
Its the first service already integrated with independent restaurants to bring both Google Wallet and Apple Pay to users across the US.

What Chefs Don't Understand About Technology - Huffington Post
A recap of SXSW's "Food and Experiential Dining" track including commentary from chefs like David Cheng and Aaron Franklin. 

Dessert at the Doorstep: YogurtBay Moves to an App-based Model with Fresh Funding - TechinAsia
Pittie Group has acquired a majority stake in the startup, investing US$240,000 to help it move into a tech-enabled delivery model.

Chef Launches Chef Delivery DevOps Workflow Service For The Enterprise - TechCrunch
This service offers a new workflow for managing the continuous delivery of their infrastructure and run-time environments. 

1-hour Delivery Startup from China Crowdsources Local Convenience Stores, Snags $20M funding - TechinAsia
Funding cam from Hillhouse Capital with participation from Sequoia Capital. The start is now valued at US$200 million.

Algae-to-Animal-Deed Start-up Gets $7M Funding Boost - Detroit Free Press
Algal Scientific raised a Series B led by Formation 8 Partners along with investment firms from Germany and Chicago. It will use the funds to increase production capacity and grow its team. 

UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way To Feed The World - Technologywater
Major changes are needed in our food, ag and trade systems, with a shift toward local small-scale farmers and food systems recommended.

Gardening in Space Gets Ready for Lift-Off - National Geographic
NASA’s Veg-01 experiment results show resounding success with red lettuce, and locavore astronauts are readying for their second space-farm-to-fork mission.

DroneDeploy Flies with $9M Series A - AgFunder
The investment came from Emergence Capital Partners, SoftTech VC, Data Collective and AngelPad.

Health App Noom Targets New Conditions with $16M Funding Round - New York Business Journal
The startup is closing its Series B and hoping to develop products specifically for cancer and heart failure patients.

How One Visionary Changed School Food in Detroit - Civil Eats
With a focus on healthier foods and local farms, Betti Wiggins has led Detroit’s kids through a food revolution.

Wholesome Wave Receives US$3.77 Million Grant from USDA to Improve Affordable Food Access - Food Tank
It will support the expansion of the organization’s national network of nutrition incentive programs, increase affordable access of fruits and vegetables for more than 110,000 SNAP consumers and more. 

From Antibiotics to Fossil fuels: the Inconvenient Truth About Sustainability - The Guardian
Humanity has spent the last century creating life-changing luxuries. Here’s why our next move should be learning how to wean ourselves off these wonders.

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