/PRNewswire/ Today Interlace Ventures, an early stage venture firm dedicated to investing in the next Shopify at its earliest stage, announced it has raised.
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SAN FRANCISCO, March 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Today Interlace Ventures announced it has expanded its team with two commerce technology luminaries. Vibhu Norby and Sydney Werber will join as venture partners while retaining their respective roles at b8ta and Avise, bringing their insight and expertise as operators who are reinventing commerce. Backed by Bain Capital Ventures and some of the largest entities in retail, fashion and consumer packaged goods (CPG), Interlace Ventures invests exclusively in early stage commerce infrastructure companies.
Norby joins Interlace Ventures to support the fund s portfolio and expand its network. He is a repeat entrepreneur, Y Combinator alumnus, commerce innovator and previously a lead engineer at Nest Labs, which was acquired by Google in 2014. He will retain his current position as CEO & co-founder of b8ta the retail-as-a-service company that has launched thousands of products and is changing how online br
Rampant burglaries plague S.F. businesses, compounding hurt of pandemic
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It had been two days since someone smashed the windows of her Castro district hardware store when owner Terry Asten Bennett woke up to an alert on her phone in early January: The store’s burglar alarm was going off, again. The one-two punch wound up costing her nearly $7,000.
Weeks later, Patrick Russell, a manager at the now-closed B8ta electronics store in Hayes Valley, was held at gunpoint before the assailant took off with two laptops. The store permanently closed the same day the robbery occurred.
On Feb. 2 in Union Square, James Dong, owner of outdoor gear store Last Minute Gear, looked at scattered glass on the pavement, remnants of the store’s front glass encasement, which had been smashed early that morning. It was the second such incident since he relocated from the Mission District in September.
Tech retailer B8ta closes 2 S.F. stores after robbery at gunpoint
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Security camera footage on Feb. 3 shows a robbery at gunpoint at B8ta s Hayes Valley store in San Francisco.B8taShow MoreShow Less
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B8ta CEO Vibhu Norby in Palo Alto in 2016.Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle 2016Show MoreShow Less
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B8ta’s Hayes Valley store in San Francisco as seen on Google Street View. The store is now closed.Google Street ViewShow MoreShow Less
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The community area in B8ta’s Hayes Valley store in 2017. The electronics retailer is known for highlighting new gadgets.Russell Yip / The Chronicle 2017Show MoreShow Less
B8ta closing another San Francisco store after armed robbery
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The exterior of a b8ta retail store, which sells electronic devices, in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco on Dec. 5, 2019.Smith Collection/Gado/Gado via Getty Images
Just one week after making the decision to close its Union Square store, b8ta CEO Vibhu Norby announced via Twitter on Wednesday that the Hayes Valley store is now closed “indefinitely” as well due to a store manager having a gun pointed at him during a robbery. Our story is not exceptional, Norby said. I think the city will say it s a b8ta-specific problem because we have a visible storefront and high-value merchandise, but everybody’s witnessing this.