Quick and Dirty: Fast Food and Fast Fashion
1. Answered Prayer! How to Turn Carrots and Quinoa into Milkshakes!
Fast food chain Shake Shack has launched a range of plant-based menu items created with the help of NotCo's A.I. program "Giuseppe." Giuseppe was used to create the recipes for non-dairy chocolate shakes and non-dairy frozen custards by analyzing the molecular structure of animal-based foods and replicating it using only plant-based ingredients. Maybe one day we'll look back on this moment and wonder why we ever tried to replicate animal-based food with plants in the first place…
2. Boohoo, Save Your Tears
Boohoo, the fast fashion e-commerce giant, has generously offered a $197 million settlement to make pesky fake discount allegations disappear. The company was accused of breaking California law by falsely displaying garments as discounted when they had never been sold for the original price on their websites PrettyLittleThing, NastyGal, and boohooMAN. Boohoo has denied all charges and agreed to settle the lawsuit without any admission of guilt. As a token of their appreciation, Boohoo will be distributing gift cards worth $17.45 each to over nine million individuals who shopped at their brands between April 2016 and June 2022. $17.45 is quite the excellent display of Boohoo's customer-focused approach in the face of controversy.
3. Stripe Goes from Lyft to Uber
Fintech juggernaut Stripe has forged a strategic payments partnership with ride-hail giant Uber. The unprecedented alliance will see the two companies initially join forces in eight of Uber’s biggest markets, spanning the globe from the US to Japan. Insiders say the groundbreaking deal represents a major coup for Stripe, which has been gunning for an Uber agreement for the past three years. While the financial terms of the partnership remain shrouded in secrecy, sources close to the matter suggest that Stripe stands to rake in a sizeable chunk of cash from commissions on each and every transaction that takes place on Uber's platform. Ka-ching!
4. Meta Making Friends with Your Child's Data Since 2017
Meta Platforms has been accused of duping parents and disregarding the privacy of children using its Messenger Kids app, which launched in 2017 and is intended to facilitate communication between children and their approved contacts. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now proposing alterations to the 2020 privacy order with the social media giant that would ban Meta from making a profit off of data collected on users under 18. The social media giant is obviously resistant to the FTC's proposed measures and is currently expected to win in this particular tussle.
5. Rick Fox Trading NBA Rings for Carbon-Negative Concrete
Carbon-negative concrete startup, Partanna, has secured $12 million in pre-seed funding because apparently, you can't just use regular old concrete to build things anymore. Co-founded by Rick Fox and Sam Marshall, the company's product uses CO2 as a feedstock, which reduces the need for traditional cement that has been polluting the environment for years. The funding round was led by Cherubic Ventures, and the company is now valued at a whopping $190 million.