The online grocery start-up Webvan may have been the single most expensive flame-out of the dot-com era, blowing through more than $800 million in venture capital and IPO proceeds in just over three years before shutting its doors in 2001.
Twelve years later, though, Webvan is rising from the dead — in the form of an online grocery business called AmazonFresh.
Four key Amazon executives — Doug Herrington, Peter Ham, Mick Mountz and Mark Mastandrea — are former Webvan officials who have spent years analyzing and fixing the problems that led to the start-up's demise.
Kiva Systems, the robotics company that Amazon bought last year for $775 million in one of its largest-ever acquisitions, was built on ideas and technologies originally developed at Webvan and is a key part of the AmazonFresh strategy.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Reuters