Supply Chain

Food Delivery Services: the Challenges of Getting Food to your Front Door

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
Direct to consumer (D2C) delivery models have disrupted consumer product industries from books and electronics to retail stores, web services and increasingly food. Online sales of food and beverage growing at 19% year-on-year, making it one of the top five fastest growing online sales sectors in the US. The market size equates to $17.5 billion in 2018 and is expected to rise to $30 billion by 2021. Peapod and Ocado - online food delivery is older than Amazon There are examples of... Read More »

Are Indoor Agriculture and Vertical Farming Growing up?

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
Urban agriculture and vertical farming, are they viable? There are question marks on efficiency, availability of useful and reasonably priced real estate, and demand for the leafy greens and herbs that are most often the crop of choice. That said, there are several high-profile companies in the U.S. that have been around for several years, e.g. AeroFarms, Plenty, and Bowery, which have raised at total of  over $400M. Alongside these farm developers, we are seeing more indoor agriculture-specific technology (see iUNU’s... Read More »

Innovation in Logistics: From a Supply Chain to a Demand Chain

Chris Sworder
Posted on by Chris Sworder
A massive industry rife with inefficiency, short on data and long on GHG emissions, global logistics represents opportunities for innovation to power it toward a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient future. Last week Cleantech Group, along with Silicon Valley Bank and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, hosted a Power Breakfast to explore key innovations in the logistics industry. Our speakers included: John Urban, Co-Founder and Former President, GT Nexus Kelly Chen, Principal, Data Collective Earnest Sweat, Investment Manager, Prologis Ventures... Read More »