Popular salad restaurant Sweetgreen is buying into kelp in 2020, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: Kelp is beneficial for both human and ocean health. Sweetgreen's temporary introduction of a "Tingly Sweet Potato and Kelp Bowl" will now give the food a platform across 104 stores nationwide.
Hollar, an e-commerce company that raised more than $75 million in VC funding, is expected to wind down soon, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Between the lines: It's been a very tough month for direct-to-consumer startups, beginning with Casper Sleep's uninspired IPO and Monday's shutdown of SoftBank-backed Brandless.
Amazon raised the stakes in its effort to get the Pentagon to reverse its decision to give Microsoft a $10 billion cloud computing contract, nicknamed JEDI, arguing that there was clear political bias. Dan digs in with NPR's Alina Selyukh.
A federal judge allowed the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint to move forward in a Tuesday decision, ruling against a coalition of state attorneys general who fought against the deal.
Why it matters: The deal, announced back in April 2018, reduces the number of national carriers from four to three, but creates a much larger rival to AT&T and Verizon, and was seen as vital for Sprint, which has continued to lose market share during the deal's long approval process.
There were over 646,000 shows available in the U.S. across linear and streaming services last year, according to Nielsen's latest Total Audience report, a 10% increase from all of 2018.
Why it matters: As more streaming platforms emerge to compete for consumers' attention and budgets, the burden is falling on consumers to navigate an overwhelming number of content choices.
Luminary is expanding its service to three new countries, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Its subscription podcast offering is bolstered by offering dozens of podcasts to users exclusively on its platform. Most Americans subscribe to multiple video services, but not multiple audio services, according to Nielsen. But that could soon change if more podcasts begin to be offered exclusively on certain platforms.
The Young Turks (TYT), one of the largest progressive digital publishers on YouTube, is receiving funding from Google-owned YouTube to launch an online course called TYT Academy that focuses on the creation of digital-first local news. Sources say the investment is in the mid-six-figures range.
Why it matters: The investment is part of YouTube's $25 million commitment to news efforts, which is part of the $300 million Google News Initiative that was announced in 2018.
Marketers that for years funneled billions of dollars into platforms using sketchy third-party data, cookies and reckless privacy practices are beginning to come to terms with a new reality.
Driving the news: Speaking at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) annual leadership meeting in Palm Springs this week, executives confessed that new privacy regulation and industry changes are forcing them to finally be on their best behavior, after years or reckless spending.
Worries are beginning to grow about China's stimulus efforts as the government has pushed new measures designed to offset the impact of the coronavirus.
The latest: Chinese regulators ordered banks to lower interest rates and allow late repayment of loans to help small and midsize companies, but there are worries the program may be ill-advised.
Supply chains, even for companies outside of China, are in motion already as businesses rethink their strategies in a new global environment.
Driving the news: A new survey of analysts who cover more than 3,000 companies from Bank of America Securities is finding a "tectonic shift in global supply chains."
Microsoft again became the most valuable U.S. company on Monday as its stock rose to another record high. Microsoft regained the designation after more than three months in second place, trailing Apple.
Details: The company's stock rose 2.6% to boost its market capitalization to $1.435 trillion. The last time Microsoft was the most valuable U.S. company at the market's close was Oct. 30. Prior to that, Microsoft was the most valuable for 127-straight sessions, from April 18 through Oct. 17, according to MarketWatch. Year to date, Microsoft's stock has jumped by 19.7%.
Tech companies are seeing significantly more funding before they go public.
What's new: Data from CB Insights shows that in the last eight years, the median amount of funding raised has jumped by more than four times to just under $300 million as of early December. That data includes IPOs or direct listings of U.S.-headquartered, VC-backed tech companies on major U.S. exchanges only.
Foxconn employees are being told to return to work in the Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, but as of Monday only about 10% of them had done so, Reuters reported.
The state of play: The world's largest contract electronics maker, which produces Apple's iPhone, was supposed to be up and running along with much of the rest of the country on Monday.
Lawmakers working to speed a federal framework for autonomous vehicles into law face a key obstacle that stymied previous attempts: who gets sued in collisions.
The big picture: Manufacturers and tech companies want federal rules of the road for their roll-out of self-driving vehicles. But trial lawyers, a powerful lobby, want key questions on liability in a driverless world answered before legislation advances.
A federal judge in Los Angeles denied a request by Uber, Postmates and two drivers to halt the enforcement of California's new law that codifies strict requirements for classifying workers as independent contractors.
Why it matters: This is a major blow to the companies and drivers in the case, as they were hoping to pause the application of the law while they sue the state to get it overturned. The law went into effect on Jan. 1.
Eileen Naughton, Google's head of human resources, is stepping down from her role this year to take on a different, New York-based job at the search giant, the company told Fortune and confirmed to Axios.
