A look at delivery startup Gopuff’s rise, reaching 165 warehouses covering 600 US cities by 2020 and a $15B valuation by 2021, and fall, as pandemic trends fade (Bloomberg)

Sabiq Shahidullah / Bloomberg:
Gopuff taps Grubhub to deliver groceries, alcohol, and household items across the US, starting in NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Austin  —  Grubhub Inc. and Gopuff are teaming up to provide fast delivery of groceries, alcohol and household items.

Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon increases its average starting pay for front-line US staff to $19+/hour, up from $18/hour; warehouse and delivery workers will earn $16/hour to $26/hour  —  – Amazon is bumping its average starting pay for warehouse and delivery workers to more than $19 an hour, up from $18 an hour, the company said Wednesday.

CNBC:
Research details Amazon’s post-pandemic shrinking US warehouse footprint: 21 facilities have closed, 21 are canceled, and 27 are delayed or on hold  —  – Amazon is closing, canceling or delaying warehouses across the U.S. after its pandemic expansion left it with too much space.

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Massachussets-based warehouse robotics startup Locus raised a $117M Series F at a “close to” $2B valuation, following a $150M Series E in February 2021  —  The last few years have been a major accelerator for the robotics industry at large, but warehouse robotics may be the biggest winner of all.

Matt Day / Bloomberg:
The Amazon Labor Union withdraws its petition for an election at a southern California warehouse, after losing an election at a New York warehouse last week  —  Amazon.com Inc. workers seeking to join a union at a company warehouse in Southern California have backed away from their attempt …

Josh Scott / BetaKit:
Calgary-based Attabotics, which makes warehouse automation robots, raised a $71.7M Series C-1 led by Export Development Canada, bringing total funding to $165M  —  With new robot built, Attabotics CEO says “the hard part’s done.”  —  Over the past six and a half years …