*By Madison Alworth*
Not all retail start-ups are having an easy time navigating the market amid stiff competition from the likes of Amazon and Walmart. But [Brandless](https://brandless.com), the everyday essentials retailer, just raised an additional $240 million in funding after only one year of operation.
Tina Sharkey, the CEO and a co-founder of Brandless, said her company is a singular community.
"We don't see those companies as competition. It's a massive country, and we are talking about a massive total addressable market," Sharkey said Monday in an interview on Cheddar. "There's a lot of room for a lot of players."
Brandless is determined to bring affordable everyday products to the American household. Sharkey joined Cheddar just a few days after [launching in July 2017](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-online-grocery-store-that-sells-everything-for-3) to explain the mission of selling no product for more than $3. Since then, the company has grown from 110 product offerings to over 300 ー but the message of access remains the same.
"We don't care what cohort you fall into ー you're a human, you're a person. You deserve better," Sharkey said. "This is the democratization of access and the democratization of goodness."
Basketball superstar Stephen Curry seems to agree. The Golden State Warrior invested in the retailer after hearing Sharkey's remarkable story. Sharkey called it a development that built "profit and purpose."
"I was telling the story of Brandless ー we weren't even fundraising at the time," she said. "And I said, look guys, what does your legacy stand for? Do you want to see the country that represents your values? Do you want to see the country where the people who mopped the floors, the coaches who supported you in high school, the bus drivers who waited for you, the cafeteria ladies that made you extra food \[are supported\]. Where's the tangible act of kindness?"
And with that, Curry was hooked.
"Steph stood up in the middle of all that and said, 'Mic drop, Sharkey. We're getting behind you.' And I started to cry," she said.
The new round of financing, led by SoftBank and its Vision Fund, brings Brandless's total capital raise to $292.5 million. Sharkey plans to use the money to expand the company's operations and offerings. By the end of the year, she predicts Brandless will offer 400 products and conquer more product categories.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/brandless-raises-an-additional-240-million-in-series-c-funding).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
