Allpress, Bills, Deus Ex Machina and Soho House, four household names that when you hear them, you know what to expect, given that you have an appreciation for tasty food, love a good drink and are in favour of unique experiences. Faced with new food delivery concepts, fast changing consumer preferences and the impact of COVID-19, it takes a special business to stay afloat and the right interaction to create a lifetime of loyalty to stay at the top.

Gymshark, the fitness community and apparel brand, has announced it will enter a strategic partnership with General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, in its first-ever fundraise, valuing the business at over GBP 1 billion, benefiting from the latest trends in the fitness industry and among direct-to-consumer brands.

The demand for a more sustainable food system is global and growing fast, with much of the shift being led by Millennials and Generation Z. Startups like Perfect Day, Oatly and Califia Farms that are offering alternatives to animal-made protein as well as milk, have long touted their animal and environmentally friendly bona fides.

Overall, the fitness industry has already been experiencing the massive growth of digital fitness, out-of-studio experiences and connected fitness. Notable platforms, such as Peloton and Mirror, have created enormous awareness, brand recognition and loyal followings. While they offer solutions that are able to fully replace the in-studio experience, they are often supplemental to the physical studio or gym experience. Consumers still desire physical human interaction but often schedules, travel and other issues impede their ability to get to a physical gym. Today’s new connected are combining training, social interaction, gamification and many forms of engagement for the consumer.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has invested USD 1.5 billion into Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms, becoming the latest international investor to invest into the fast-growing Indian digital services business during the coronavirus pandemic.

Consolidation in the world of on-demand food ordering and delivery continues apace, a move that is creating the world's largest online food-delivery company outside of China in terms of revenue. Europe's Just Eat Takeaway.com has agreed to buy Grubhub in an all-stock transaction worth about USD 7.3 billion. The deal values Grubhub's shares at USD 75.15 apiece, a 27% premium to their Wednesday close.

As the internet economy grows, so does the importance of last-mile delivery, which is the final step in the increasingly competitive and costly process of moving items to customers’ homes as quickly as possible. Quick commerce (“q-commerce”) offers significant growth potential expecting to reach a global market size of around Euro 448 billion by 2030.

Humankind is facing a global crisis. Perhaps the biggest crisis of our generation. To stop Coronavirus, we will need to radically change almost everything we do: how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our children, take care of our family. We all want things to go back to normal quickly. But what most of us have probably not yet realized is that things will not go back to normal after a few weeks, or even a few months, of staying at home. Some things never will. Facing such realities, it is tempting to press pause and question how we got here, but it feels prudent to retrace our moves in hopes of unearthing some explanation in the past. Hitherto, COVID-19 offers opportunity and reminds us of something we have lost long ago. This time gives us a chance to rebuild the broken parts of our world and create a life less hurried, but more conscious.

Companies like Rapha, Ryzon, or Soho House have managed to create communities that speak to the human need for belonging. From nature, us humans are social species. People desire an identity and are motivated to become part of a community.

Mailchimp, an all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses, has acquired Courier Media, a London-based media company. Courier produces a bi-monthly magazine and newspaper full of educational and inspirational content for modern entrepreneurs and small enterprises, as well as a newsletter, podcast, and events.

Golden Goose, the Italian brand whose deliberately scruffy-looking trainers sell for as much as GBP 1,000, has been sold for just under Euro 1.3 billion from The Carlyle Group to Permira, the private equity firm that also owns Dr Martens and recently acquired Reformation. Permira will buy the business from the US buyout group, which acquired the firm for Euro 400 million just three years ago.

The 20-time Grand Slam tennis champion is taking a big step toward life after tennis with On Running, a Swiss running brand with a cult following and global ambitions. Despite stressing that he is far from finished playing on the World tour, Federer has started to look at what comes next as he has become an investor in On, which was started in 2010 in Zurich.

Google parent company Alphabet will buy Fitbit, putting the tech giant head-to-head with Apple in the fitness tracking and consumer health space. The deal values Fitbit around USD 2.1 billion at a fully diluted equity value.The acquisition makes a lot of sense as Google has spent years trying to break into the wearables market with its Wear OS platform, but it has struggled to make a real impact. Fitbit is offering Google an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market.

Thanks to technology consumers are spoiled for choice and access at ease. As users create a lot of data points, it offers companies valuable insights to better understand their customers and improve future experiences, in turn boosting their image, client loyalty, and reputation for the brand. The key is to balance experience management with intelligent enterprise technology.

There’s been a flurry of M&A activity among media brands this year. Vox acquired New York Media, Vice announced its purchase of Refinery 29 and NowThis parent Group Nine has taken over PopSugar. Dealmakers in the space have taken on a different approach in recent years, as opposed to when venture-capital money flooded the sector and valuations soared. The new acquirer largely follows a different playbook that has cash flows and profit front of mind, not simply growth at all costs. Savvy media brands are looking at how they can convince their audiences to hand over money for their content, such as paywalls, creating a membership model or executing intelligent affiliate linking strategies.

Every major publisher has been through some kind of transformation in recent years – whether a print-to-digital transformation or vice versa, a revenue-model transformation, or horizontal as well as vertical expansion of the business model. While Highsnobiety’s origins sit in the digital world, Monocle is deliberately not developing a dedicated digital format for the iconic Monocle magazine.

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages worldwide. There are thousands of independent coffee bars in the streets, serving different varieties of the drink. At a first glance, the industry might seem highly diversified, but large players are in a rush to rapidly consolidate. The two largest players are the Swiss giant Nestlé and Luxembourger JAB, which hold together more than a third of the marked for coffee roasters according to Euromonitor.

We are living in a world, where people are losing sight of the process and the journey towards a goal, instead they are seeking its instant fulfillment and the gratification of such. It is contradictory to theory of the 10,000-hour rule, which says intense, dedicated practice makes perfect at that one thing.

Farfetch has acquired New Guards Group for a Total Enterprise Value of USD 675 million. Farfetch said the move “advances its strategy to be the global technology platform for the luxury fashion industry”. By adding a “Brand Platform” layer to Farfetch’s existing Technology, Data and Logistics Platform, New Guard will extend the company’s capabilities beyond technology solutions and global distribution into design, production and brand development

Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Hermès are battling for young consumers and to win over the hearts, minds, and dollars by trying to engage them through social media, storytelling and streetwear. Millennials and Gen Z are expected to account for 45% of all luxury spending by 2025, so it makes sense to earn their loyalty when they are young that could help to increase the size of the market from Euro 295 billion to Euro 305 billion by 2020.