Amazon launches Counter in-store pick-up in the US, starting with 100 Rite Aid locations – TechCrunch

Amazon’s strategy to bring more brick-and-mortar options into its vast e-commerce empire, and its ambition to sell more pharmaceutical products, today may have found themselves a little more knitted together. The company announced a new service in the US called Counter, a free in-store pick-up service where Amazon shoppers can arrange to collect packages. And…

VCs double down on data-driven investment models – TechCrunch

Social Capital co-founder Chamath Palihapitiya is spinning out a company from his venture capital fund-turned-family-office, TechCrunch has learned. The new entity, temporarily dubbed CaaS (short for capital-as-a-service) Technologies, will focus on providing data-driven insights to VC firms. Data informs investment decisions at VC funds more than ever, as new technologies make way for increasingly quantitative…

Vertical market networks, effective startup names, Libra, Carbon, and Sidewalk Labs – TechCrunch

The next service marketplace wave: Vertical market networks B2B service marketplaces (think translation as a service) are an extraordinarily lucrative startup category. But despite the incredible potential of these platforms to generate outsized returns, many fail. Why? Ivan Smolnikov, the CEO and founder of translation service startup Smartcat, investigates why certain marketplaces seem to grow…