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A startup marketing to Gen Z on college campuses filed a lawsuit this week alleging that Instacart engaged in federal trademark infringement and unfair competition by naming its new group ordering app “Fizz.” The plaintiffs, Fizz Social Corp., claim they have been operating their event planning platform under the FIZZ trademark and have become a well-known social platform used on more than 400 college campuses. The app, which requires users to sign up with a college email, features anonymous text posts, polls, photos, and the ability to send direct messages. The company has raised at least $41.5 million as of last summer, TechCrunch reported in 2024. “This new Fizz App by Instacart and Partiful is a blatant attempt to misappropriate the goodwill that Plaintiff has painstakingly developed through its continuous use of the FIZZ Marks among the Gen-Z demographic,” attorneys for the social media app wrote in a complaint filed on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit follows Instacart’s launch this week of a new stand-alone app also named Fizz, which allows groups to order snacks and drinks ahead of parties for a flat $5 delivery fee. Instacart also integrated the app with Partiful, a popular event planning platform, which is also named as a defendant in the suit. “Plaintiff brings this action based on Defendants’ past, current, and planned use of the FIZZ trademark in connection with collaborative event promotion and planning, social discovery, and social networking services targeting the same Gen-Z consumer base that Plaintiff has served since at least January 2022,” the suit states. Fizz, the social app, is demanding an immediate halt to Instacarts use of the Fizz name and is seeking damages. According to the lawsuit, Fizz has used the name since January 2022. However, it only filed for trademark registration in 2024, with applications still pending. Still, Kevin J. Greene, the John J. Schumacher chair and professor at Southwestern Law School, says that while unfair competition claims are often throwaway claims that lawyers routinely include, the social media platform could have a strong case under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act. Greene notes that this section protects unregistered marks and addresses likely confusion over similar names. “I look at the case and think it would be a pretty strong case on their behalf,” he tells Fast Company. Instacart has established itself as a major player in the gig economy. Since going public in 2023, its shares have risen more than 47%. Partiful, meanwhile, was named one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies of 2025, and reported a 600% increase in user activity in 2024. Instacart and Partiful did not respond to Fast Companys requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Category:
E-Commerce
After raising billions in funding, vertical farming companies have struggled. Plenty, a Silicon Valley-based startup backed by investors including Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, filed for bankruptcy in March. Bowery, which was once valued at $2.3 billion, shut down last fall. Another startup, Fifth Season, shuttered its automated indoor farm in 2022. AeroFarms, a pioneer in the space, declared bankruptcy in 2023. The basic business modelgrowing crops like leafy greens indoors on tall vertical towershasnt proven that it can work. But AeroFarms, which raised an undisclosed amount of money after its bankruptcy and found a new CEO, has managed to turn itself around. The company has now been profitable for the last two quarters as it sells microgreens at retailers like Whole Foods and Costco. Despite the current skepticism, I think we’ve now demonstrated that vertical farming can be sustainable and profitable and deliver product at scale, says Molly Montgomery, who became CEO of AeroFarms in September 2023. [Photo: AeroFarms] Before joining the company, Montgomery studied it at the request of investors who wanted to know if it could be a viable business. I was extremely skeptical about vertical farms because I had never seen a profitable business model yet, says Montgomery. When they asked me, I was like, Im not sure that a vertical farm can be profitable. Montgomery, who also serves as board director for NatureSweet, a leader in greenhouse-grown tomatoes, previously led Landec Corp., a company that contracted with outdoor growers throughout the U.S. and Mexico to make salad kits and other packaged vegetable products. But doing the due diligence on AeroFarms convinced her that it could actually succeed. She calculated that AeroFarmss technology could operate at the right production cost. And consumers liked the product, particularly its microgreens, tiny greens that are harvested when theyre 4 days old. The missing ingredient was operational excellence, she says. There wasnt enough experience in the company on how to run a vegetable production facility. [Photo: AeroFarms] It was a tech company first, not a farming company. Montgomerys initial step was to focus: She shut down R&D facilities in New Jersey and Abu Dhabi, so all that was left was a 140,000-square-foot production facility in Virginia that had opened in 2022. Half of the staff was laid off. Everyone who was left was put on specific initiatives that I believed would enable us to get to farm profitability, she says. She also hired employees with deep expertise in food production. The team went through several sprints on the basics, from food safety to training employees. Then it focused on operational issues like how to improve yield and how to maintain the robots that grow the crops. The companys automated system loads plants in the tall towers where they grow, monitors and harvests the crops, and packs up products for stores. (It runs 24/7 and has more than 2,000 spare parts, meaning that maintenance is a major task.) Montgomery also chose to focus on microgreens, which have better margins than traditional leafy greens. The company grows a variety of crops, from kale and cabbage to bok choy and spicy wasabi mustard. The young greens are more nutritious than fully grown versions of the same crops. Its not something that was ever readily available from traditional farms. When they’re grown outside in soil (and often with pesticides), they have to be washed, which harms the dainty plants. “As soon as you wash them, they begin to decay,” she says. “So [they have] a very short shelf life. When you grow them aeroponically, we don’t use any pesticides and we only spray the roots. So we do not need to wash them. That means, she says, that AeroFarmss greens have a shelf life that lasts as long as 24 days. The company currently supplies around 70% of the retail market for microgreens, and is seeing demand for more. [Photo: AeroFarms] The companys tech may have some advantages compared to other approaches. It grows plants aeroponically, without soil and without submerging plants in standing water, so the whole system is lighter than some others, and more plants can be stacked vertically, making better use of floor space. Misting the roots with water and nutrients speeds up the plants growth rate. Because the farms can be more productive than competitors, the company can use less energy per plant; energy is one of the biggest factors in the cost of running a vertical farm. If vertical farming can work, there could be clear benefits. Right now, most greens in the U.S. come from drought-prone regions like Arizona and California; vertical farms use 90% less water than growing outside. As climate change makes farming more difficultespecially because of extreme heatindoor farming could theoretically help support the supply chain. And instead of shipping produce thousands of miles across the country, East Coast grocery stores could get more of it locally year-round. The industry is still nascent, and two profitable quarters arent conclusive proof that vertical farming can succeed. Still, its a sign of hope fo a teetering field, and AeroFarms is once again planning for expansion.
Category:
E-Commerce
For many families with young children in the U.S., the cost of childcare is prohibitively expensive, preventing some parents, especially mothers, from returning to the workforce. Thats why one California-based company recently introduced a new childcare initiative, vowing to pay up to $3,000 a month in childcare costs for eligible employees. The cofounders of Cakes Body, 32-year-old twin sisters Casey Sarai and Taylor Capuano, say their own experiences as working mothers inspired the decision. Capuano recalls how, after having her first child, she made the difficult decision to return to work even though she had only $200 left each month after paying childcare costs. This isnt some distant memory for us, Sarai says. We felt how much of a burden the astronomical childcare costs were to us and our families and what a big stressor that was. The sisters launched Cakes Body, which makes silicone nipple covers, in 2022. Since then, they say the company has grown about 10 times year-over-year, netting just under a million dollars their first year in business to a current revenue forecast of $150 million. They attribute that success largely to the team theyve created, which is why they view the childcare credit as an investment. Its a way to maintain the talent that we have and keep moms in the workforce if they want to be there, Sarai says. Cakes Body has 30 employees nationwide and about 20% will qualify for the childcare credit, which was announced during a team meeting last Thursday. The companys TikTok account shared a video of the moment. According to the Department of Labors National Database of Childcare Prices, the median price range of childcare for one child in 2022 (the most recent year data is available) was $6,552 to $15,600, and families spent about 916% of their income on childcare. Sarai, who has an 18-month-old son and an 8-year-old stepdaughter, and Capuano, who has a 15-month-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, say they arrived at the figure of $36,000 a year by looking at national averages of childcare costs, as well as their own expenses. Their employees will self-report their monthly childcare costs and the full amount, up to $3,000, will be added to their paychecks each month, Sarai says. Employees who have children under public-school age are eligible, and the funds can be used for babysitters and nannies, in addition to childcare facilities. The childcare credit is part of Cakes Bodys overall work-life philosophy, which Sarai says has three pillars. The first is implementing a results-only work environment, or ROWE, which prioritizes flexibility and output over micromanaging and physical presence in an office. The second pillar is a synchronized quiet period, where the company takes an entire month off around the holidays. The new childcare credit is the third pillar. Sarai says that while she and her sister were motivated to start a company because of their own desire for better work-life balance, they also believe their company will see real benefits because of the changes theyve implemented. By offering a flexible work environment, we are able to tap into a completely under-leveraged demographic: working moms looking to get back into the workforce, Sarai says. Some of the women we have on our team, this was their first job back after being stay-at-home moms for a period of time, and I feel so lucky because they are some of the most efficient employees we have. A lot of the skills they have from being stay-at-home moms are very transferrableknowing how to multitask, knowing how to prioritize. The founders hope that other companies see their childcare credit as inspiration. Match us, do better, go further, Capuano wrote on LinkedIn. The U.S. is notoriously behind other wealthy, industrialized countries when it comes to support for young families. There is no federally mandated parental leave or universal childcare; tax credits and subsidies are limited; and even for families who can afford it, childcare is often difficult to obtain, as the industry faces persistent worker shortages, difficult-to-meet regulations, and shutdowns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mothers left the workforce in record numbers to take on caregiving responsibilities when schools closed. While the Department of Labor reports that the number of employed mothers has since returned and even exceeded pre-pandemic levels, the childcare crisis persists. Some employers have aimed to bridge that gap by offering childcare benefits, from on-site childcare centers to childcare subsidies for parents. But its far from a perfect solution and even the best scenarios put parents at the mercy of their employers. For instance, last year, both Google and General Mills shuttered their on-site childcare centers. Sarai and Capuano acknowledge that access to affordable childcare shouldnt fall solely on employers and that broader governmental support is essential. But until that happens, were committed to doing what we can to support our team and remove barriers that hold working parents back, Sarai says.
Category:
E-Commerce
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