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GrubMarket In U.S., Hits $3.5 Billion Valuation In New Funding Round

GrubMarket, a food logistics startup based in San Francisco, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $50 million in a Series G fundraising round, valuing the company at over $3.5 billion.

TakeAway Points:

  • GrubMarket, a food logistics startup based in San Francisco, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $50 million in a Series G fundraising round, valuing the company at over $3.5 billion.
  • With more than 12,000 workers, GrubMarket has grown to become the largest private food tech firm in the United States by sales since its establishment in 2014.
  • Tesla had obtained the first of several approvals needed for the electric vehicle manufacturer to eventually introduce a promised robotaxi service in California.

$3.5 billion in new funding

The new round includes Liberty Street Funds, 3Spoke Capital, ROC Venture Group, Portfolia, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Joseph Stone Capital, and other unnamed investors.

“GrubMarket has experienced an incredible acceleration in growth over the last 12 months – our revenues surpassed $2 billion in 2024, and we became the largest private food technology company in the United States, while continuing to maintain a strong and healthy financial bottom line,” founder & CEO Mike Xu said in a statement announcing the funding.

The company, founded in 2014, currently does business with more than 70 countries, serving businesses and consumers in all 50 states plus Canada, and has over 12,000 employees.

Despite a tough macroeconomic environment fueled by uncertainty surrounding tariffs, much of the company’s growth has come through acquisitions. Companies that GrubMarket acquires use its software suite, which includes sales and online ordering features, inventory management, lot traceability, and automated routing and logistics.

The company says the funding will be used to double down on artificial intelligence.

“As our business model is highly sustainable, this funding round was not a necessity, but rather an opportunity to align our valuation with the scale and strength of our business growth, our AI tech innovations, and the significant value we create for the industry,” Xu said.

The company’s Farm-GPT, an analytics tool powered by generative AI that uses real-time and historical pricing data from USDA and proprietary sources, helps farmers and growers maximize profits and optimize crop selection. It also has a broader GrubAssist suite of AI-powered virtual assistants delivering real-time business insights and analysis.

GrubMarket has been named to CNBC’s annual Disruptor 50 list the past two consecutive years, ranked No. 23 in 2024 and No. 41 in 2023.

Tesla gets first permits to run robotaxis in California

Tesla on Tuesday received the first in a series of approvals from California required for the electric car maker to eventually launch a promised robotaxi service in the state, according to a state regulator.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said it approved Tesla’s application for a transportation charter-party carrier permit (TCP), a license typically associated with chauffeur-operated services, allowing the company to own and control a fleet of vehicles and transport employees on pre-arranged trips.

The permit is a prerequisite for applying to operate an autonomous ride-hailing service in California, but a CPUC spokesperson said the current permit “does not authorize them to provide rides” in autonomous vehicles, and does not allow Tesla to operate a ride-hailing service to the public.

With sales growth slowing, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pivoted his focus last year to rolling out robotaxis and has promised driverless ride-hailing services to the public in California and Texas this year. In October, Tesla revealed the Cybercab, a robotaxi concept that had no steering wheel or control pedals.

Tesla had applied for the TCP permit in November 2024, the regulator said in an email, adding that the company had not applied for the other permits yet.

The company would also need permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and CPUC in order to operate a fully autonomous robotaxi service that charges customers.

Tesla currently only has a DMV permit to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver.

A DMV spokesperson said on Tuesday that Tesla has not applied for any additional permits from the agency, which would be required to move forward with a CPUC application for driverless taxis.







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Trump Sped Up Google’s $32 Billion Acquisition Of Wiz

After U.S. President Donald Trump took office eight weeks ago, executives were able to finalize a deal in a rush of negotiations, less than a year after Google’s plans to buy Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz failed.

TakeAway Points:

  • Google’s negotiations to acquire Wiz intensified following Trump’s inauguration.
  • Google’s enhanced offer and increased breakup fee helped seal the deal.
  • Wiz had previously thought about an IPO.
  • Talks between the two sides were on and off for about a year.

Google and Wiz’s deal

Google sweetened its original offer for $23 billion in July to $32 billion, making it one of the largest tech deals ever, and dramatically upped the breakup fee to more than $3.2 billion, people familiar with the agreement said. But the real closer for Wiz and Google executives was the change at the White House that brought with it the prospect of a friendlier antitrust review under Trump, these people said.

Google made another pass last fall while Wiz considered a potential IPO, these people said. While negotiations continued sporadically over several months, executives started meeting regularly to hammer out details of a deal after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration and appointment of key antitrust officials in his administration, these people said.

Fazal Merchant also joined Wiz as its new Chief Financial Officer in January, while the company was still weighing a potential initial public offering. Merchant played a major role in shaping the deal, along with CEO Assaf Rappaport, helping to get it across the finish line, one of the people said. Google’s cloud chief Thomas Kurian was also a key architect of the agreement, two people said.

Juicy deal

Wiz executives found it hard to turn down Google’s revised offer, which valued the cybersecurity startup 39% higher than the earlier bid, and also included a higher reverse breakup fee of more than $3.2 billion, or over 10% of the deal value, payable to Wiz if the deal falls through, the sources said.

Google sees the premium as justified given Wiz’s 70% annual revenue growth and over $700 million in annualized revenue, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

Reverse termination fees, more commonly referred to as breakup fees, are paid by buyers to compensate target companies when deals fall apart due to regulatory reasons.

Such a high breakup fee is not common in corporate dealmaking in the United States, even though such fees have been on the rise in recent years as regulatory threats to large deals have increased globally. According to a study by law firm Fenwick & West, which reviewed deals worth at least $1 billion that were signed in 2023, breakup fees on an average ranged between 4% and 7% of the overall transaction value.

It is not clear if Google and Wiz approached U.S. antitrust authorities prior to the signing of the deal.

Some companies have preemptively briefed U.S. antitrust watchdogs to warm them up before signing a deal. For instance, in 2023, Tempur Sealy sought the blessing of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission before signing a $4 billion deal to acquire Mattress Firm.

Wiz executives were wary after seeing Adobe’s attempted $20 billion takeover of Figma fall apart due to antitrust scrutiny in late 2023, two people said. Google is also currently battling two U.S. Department of Justice lawsuits over its domination of online search and another about ad technology.

Breakup fee

Google had offered to pay Wiz a breakup fee of about $2 billion at the time – a sum that Wiz felt was not high enough for them to undertake the risk of signing the deal, the sources said.

Some of Wiz’s largest venture-capital backers were worried that then-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan would tank the deal, the sources said.

Trump’s appointment of Andrew Ferguson to chair the FTC and Gail Slater to helm antitrust reviews at Justice also gave executives at both companies more confidence in a smoother regulatory review, people familiar with the deal said.

Bank of America advised Google on the deal, while Goldman Sachs advised Wiz.







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