Food Tech Media Startup Funding, M&A and Partnerships: March 2014
Q1 of 2014 finished with $300m + of private investment in the food tech & media sector and 12 notable acquisitions. 

Let's Re-engineer the Future of Food
From June 27-29 Food+Tech Connect, in partnership with Applegate, Google, Chipotle and Studio Industries, is bringing restaurant and foodservice rabble-rousers together with tech and design nerds to tackle big dining challenges and co-create solutions at Hack//Dining NYC. Apply today!

Look & Cook Partners With Amazon Fire TV: Aims To Be The Digital Food Network
The recipe app provides detailed instructions for making and perfecting dozens of celebrity chef dishes. The new partnership will drastically broaden its customer base, as the app will come standard on a whopping 12 million devices.

Q&A With SITU: The Smart Food Scale That Counts Calories For You
SITU launched a Kickstarter campaign in early April and raised over 110 percent of its goal. We chat with creator Michael Grothaus about SITU's target market, data sources, differentiating factors and more. 

Danielle Gould on Edible Institute, Smart Farming and The Domino Effect - Edible Manhattan
Edible Manhattan sits down with Danielle Gould to chat about how she got started, where she thinks the food world is headed, and the important role technology can — and will — play in the future. Don't miss Danielle's panel about the intersection of technology and food at Edible Institute on May 10 in NYC. 

5 Cool Things We Learned About Food and Technology from Small Bytes - SF Weekly
The Bold Italic and General Assembly's panel explored how we can begin to answer questions of food shortages, the impact of technology on food production and distribution, and what iPhone-operated drones carrying lettuce have to do with anything.  

Mobile Apps Could Hit $70B In Revenues By 2017 - VentureBeat
Digi-Capital, an investment bank for mobile apps and games, said in its first quarter mobile apps study that non-game apps could double their percentage share of total app revenue from 26 percent to 51 percent by 2017. 

Caviar Raises $13M to Challenge Grubhub, Help Top Chefs Deliver - Wall Street Journal
Funded by Tiger Global’s venture fund, the startup plans to use it to maintain a high quality of service for both restaurants and customers while expanding geographically in the U.S.

This Restaurant Is Serious About Garbage—It Doesn't Produce Any - TakePart
Sandwich Me In owner Justin Vrany drags home all of the paper and glass waste from the restaurant, carefully sorting and recycling it, and the organic waste is separated into different buckets for compost. 

Square Now Lets Merchants Collect Payments Offline And In Advance For Order Pickup - TechCrunch
Via the web-based pickup feature, users can pay for items and arrange to pick up items within a certain time frame at the merchant’s store or restaurant. Customers have to visit the restaurant’s page on Square Market to order.

MyCheck Now Lets You Pay At Table, Split Bills And Tip Right From PayPal App - TechCrunch
Users will be able to check into restaurants and other venues from the PayPal app’s homescreen, where the option to pay the bill digitally will be offered for supported MyCheck-enabled locations.

QikServe, PayPal to Enable Mobile Food Ordering and Payments at UK Establishments - Pizza Marketplace
QikServe said its mobile ordering solution can now be integrated into PayPal's payment app. This means restaurants and bars can offer customers the choice to order and pay for food and drink through their smartphone.

This Australian Startup Wants You Never To Leave Your Credit Card Behind A Bar Again - Business Insider
Two school friends from Adelaide who both worked in hospitality as teenagers have developed Aston Club, a mobile app which pays bar and restaurant bills. It's free for users and charges a merchant fee for restaurants. 

Blue Apron Raises $50M to Deliver Do-It-Yourself Meal Kits, Recipes - Wall Street Journal
Stripes Group led the Series C investment joined by the startup’s earlier backers, including Bessemer Venture Partners and First Round Capital. Investors involved in the deal confirmed a post-money valuation of $500 million for the startup.

FreshRealm Gets $10M For Food Technology - SocalTech
The funding came from Impermanence, LLC. FreshRealm is developing a temperature-controlled, resuable shipping vessel and cloud-based software aimed at improving food distribution and reducing food waste.

San Francisco’s On-demand Meal Space Sees Its First Victim As Chefler Shuts Down Its Service - PandoDaily
It couldn’t hack the price war that started when SpoonRocket’s $8-a-meal service expanded to the SOMA neighborhood of San Fransicso. The margins on each meal were too small, and Chefler plain ran out of cash.

Forget Food, This Startup Delivers Booze - Upstart
A group of University of Central Florida students has launched DrinkDrivers, a startup delivering alcohol to users, and grown it beyond its home base.

Sticker Shock: Vermont First State to OK GMO Labeling - Modern Farmer
Back in 2004, state lawmakers passed a bill requiring that GMO seeds be labeled, and support for the movement has only grown from there.

How New Legislation in Boston Gave Fresh Life to Urban Farms - Modern Farmer
In December, as one of his last tasks in office, former mayor Thomas M. Menino signed Article 89 into law. The new ordinance means farmers will be able to grow – and, importantly, sell for profit — within the city limits.

Amazon’s New Wearable Technology Hub Showcases the Latest Smartwatches, Activity Trackers, and More - The Next Web
It also educates customers through its Learning Center, includes buying guides for a few different wearable categories and has a library of videos that demonstrate some of the retailer’s most popular products. 

MyFitnessPal Moves Into Asia With Localized Apps For China, Japan, And Korea - TechCrunch
When the company launches a localized app, it isn’t just translated into the local language; it also uses local units of measurement and includes data about local foods.

New 'PareUp' App Gives You Cheap Dibs On Retailers' Excess Food Before They Toss It - Huffington Post
The startup has already partnered with a handful of coffee shops and bakeries in New York City, including Oslo Coffee Roasters, PushCart Coffee and Breads Bakery. 

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