pandemic

How Guac, Powered by Y Combinator, Uses Machine Learning to Forecast Grocery Sales

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Poor grocery demand forecasting is responsible for more waste than you might expect. It’s not only bad for the environment — food waste is a major source of carbon emissions — but costly for grocers. Per Retail Insights, food and grocery retailers lose up to 8% of revenues through inadequate inventory availability. “Food waste and food security are issues that Jack and I care deeply about, and we were really excited about an opportunity to actually address food waste at its core,” Wang said. But Wang says that Guac is differentiated both by its dedication to transparency and its intense fine-tuning of forecasting models.

“Debut Fund Launch: Climactic Seizes Opportunities in Upcoming Climate Tech M&A Surge Alongside Partner Visionaries”

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A couple years ago, when the pandemic was still in full swing, Raj Kapoor and Josh Felser started making some investments in climate tech startups. Things must have gone well, because now they’re jumping in: The firm today said it has closed a $65 million inaugural fund, using it to back founders who are starting climate tech software companies. Felser founded Spinner in 1997 (sold to AOL) and Crackle in 2004 (sold to Sony). He also started the #Climate nonprofit in 2014 and a public-private COVID task force during the pandemic. Those experiences, coupled with a growing concern for the state of the Earth’s climate, led the two to form Climactic.