{"id":1825,"date":"2019-03-08T02:42:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T02:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vagroup.com.my\/investment\/?p=179"},"modified":"2019-03-08T02:42:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T02:42:07","slug":"starbucks-will-anchor-the-new-400-million-food-focused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/2019\/03\/08\/starbucks-will-anchor-the-new-400-million-food-focused\/","title":{"rendered":"starbucks-will-anchor-the-new-400-million-food-focused-valor-siren-ventures-fund\/"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"speakable-summary\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.starbucks.com\/\">Starbucks<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cts.businesswire.com\/ct\/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fsbux.co%2F2Foeshc&amp;esheet=51957348&amp;newsitemid=20190320005230&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Valor+Siren+Ventures+I+L.P.+%28%E2%80%9CVSV%E2%80%9D%29&amp;index=1&amp;md5=3cdb4b1e32717e3196a5b9a4a605cba2\">is serving up a steaming hot $100 million cash commitment<\/a> to anchor a new food-focused fund in partnership with the consumer and tech-focused focused private equity firm\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.valorep.com\/\">Valor Equity Partners<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The behemoth of burnt-coffee said that its commitment to the Valor Siren Ventures fund is an attempt to focus on \u201cnew ideas and technologies that are relevant to customers, inspiring to partners (employees), and meaningful to\u00a0<a class=\"crunchbase-link\" href=\"https:\/\/crunchbase.com\/organization\/starbucks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-type=\"organization\" data-entity=\"starbucks\">Starbucks\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Starbucks announcement was short on details, except for a general statement that it would focus on investments in companies developing technologies, products and solutions related to food or retail.<\/p>\n<p>As a company, Starbucks has been incredibly innovative \u2014 rolling out new tech-enabled services to customers. The company has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/05\/22\/starbuckss-mobile-payment-service-is-slightly-outpacing-apples\/\">one of the most popular mobile payment services<\/a>, is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/08\/03\/starbucks-drops-major-hint-at-plans-to-accept-bitcoin\/\">dabbling with cryptocurrency payments<\/a>\u00a0and has a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/12\/14\/starbucks-adding-delivery-services-to-more-than-2000-stores-via-uber-eats\/\">robust on-demand delivery service through UberEats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed breakout\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" title=\"\u201cStarbucks\u2019s mobile payment service is slightly outpacing Apple\u2019s\u201d \u2014 TechCrunch\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2018\/05\/22\/starbuckss-mobile-payment-service-is-slightly-outpacing-apples\/embed\/#?secret=RnjUWrNMMb\" width=\"800\" height=\"595\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" data-secret=\"RnjUWrNMMb\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, Valor has a long history of investing in both technology and consumer food businesses. The firm has investments in companies that run the gamut from\u00a0<a class=\"crunchbase-link\" href=\"https:\/\/crunchbase.com\/organization\/space-exploration-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-type=\"organization\" data-entity=\"space-exploration-technologies\">SpaceX,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Tesla and\u00a0<a class=\"crunchbase-link\" href=\"https:\/\/crunchbase.com\/organization\/addepar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-type=\"organization\" data-entity=\"addepar\">Addepar\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0to food services companies and restaurant chains like WowBao, Fooda and Eatsa.<\/p>\n<p>With its commitment, Starbucks joins a growing number of food and beverage companies that are embracing venture capital.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.1894capital.com\/en_US\/home.html\">Kellogg\u2019s<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tysonfoods.com\/innovation\/food-innovation\/tyson-ventures\">Tyson Foods<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.301inc.com\/\">General Mills<\/a>\u00a0all have affiliated venture funds, and even\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.chipotle.com\/2018-08-22-Chipotle-Announces-New-Accelerator-For-Ventures-That-Are-Changing-The-Food-Landscape-To-Make-The-World-Better\">Chipotle is starting an accelerator program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe that innovative ideas are fuel for the future, and we continue to build on this heritage inside our company across beverage, experiential retail, and our digital flywheel,\u201d said Kevin Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Starbucks, in a statement. \u201cAt the same time, and with an eye toward accelerating our innovation agenda, we are inspired by, and want to support the creative, entrepreneurial businesses of tomorrow with whom we may explore commercial relationships down the road. This new partnership with Valor presents exciting opportunities, not only for these startups, but also for Starbucks, as we build an enduring company for decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starbucks\u00a0is serving up a steaming hot $100 million cash commitment to anchor a new food-focused fund in partnership with the consumer and tech-focused focused private equity firm\u00a0Valor Equity Partners. The behemoth of burnt-coffee said that its commitment to the Valor Siren Ventures fund is an attempt to focus on \u201cnew ideas and technologies that are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vagroup.com.my\/investment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}