That's one powerful sandwich

Someone must have been a really big fan of Glee‘s Grilled Cheesus episode.

VentureBeat is reporting that Jonathan Kaplan, who previously founded the company behind the Flip camera, is starting a chain of grilled cheese sandwich and soup restaurants. “Good for him, grilled cheese is awesome,” you may be thinking. And yes, grilled cheese and soup is an awesome combination, but we’re not sure if it’s $10 million good. Someone at Sequoia is though – they’ve given Kaplan enough money to open 20 stores, which cost between $500,000 and $1 million to open.

Well, at least it’s better than Milanoo.

Seriously, the famed venture capitalists (who’ve funded companies like Google and Apple) probably got involved more for the mobile food aspect. The Melt – great name, by the way – is aiming to push users to ordering and paying via phone, where they’ll receive a QR code that can be redeemed at the restaurant. The Melt will have five restaurants in the San Francisco area by November with plans to open 500 locations over the next 5 years.

We know that food trucks are a big driver of mobile payments, so the premise doesn’t sound far fetched but we think the real money would be in the ordering technology. The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen generated plenty of excitement in San Francisco last May, so it’s not that there’s anything wrong with the menu, but as delicious as they can be grilled cheese sandwiches everyday would probably get old (not to mention a bit unhealthy). Being able to get in and out of a restaurant with a QR code during the lunch time rush actually sounds pretty good, but only if it’s an option for the times when someone is in the mood for salad or a burger or anything else besides grilled cheese and soup.

If it catches on, maybe The Melt will be the case study for the technology, but that’s where our faith in this idea lies.

Sorry Grilled Cheesus.

Exhibit A of why Silicon Valley needs more women in the venture capital arena – at the very least during due diligence: Chinese online retailer Milanoo recently sent out a press release {via Tech Crunch} announcing a multi-million dollar investment from the Chinese arm of Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most well established venture capital investment firms.

“Since its inception in July of 2008, Milanoo.com has grown by leaps and bounds. Milanoo.com has consecutively increased its revenue by 600% each year that the company has been in business. In three short years, Milanoo.com has grown to serve customers in over 180 countries around the world in seven of the most popular languages – including English, Spanish and French.” – Milanoo press release

The problem? A sizable portion of the merchandise on Milanoo is comprised of designer replica items and out and out knockoffs of everything from Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik shoes to Cate Blanchett’s lavender Givenchy Golden Globes dress and Kate Middleton’s blue Issa engagement dress. We’re not talking “inspired by” designs, of the sort that ASOS built it’s very successful e-commerce business on either; among the domestic Chinese mass market brands are enough designer replicas to fill two or three Canal Street stores.

Christian Louboutin’s legal tenacity for the right to use a red sole on shoes is well documented on designs that are distinctively different from his own, and the company released a video of thousands of Chinese replicas being crushed under the tires of a bulldozer. Though they aren’t called Louboutin replicas by name, the red sole  is difficult to miss, as is the Christian Louboutin logo left in on the product images lifted from other websites (who presumably sell the real thing).

That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the dresses, which are often portrayed through a single image of celebrities on the red carpet wearing the originals that have likely inspired the Milanoo replica version. If the imitation weren’t… flattering enough, many of the images feature the Milanoo watermark on the photos to give the impression that the celebrities are wearing Milanoo.

Original Chinese fashion design talent is not an oxymoron, but China’s efforts to establish homegrown brands that can compete internationally will continue to be a struggle when the segment of the fashion sector that receives “multiple millions” in financial backing is at the risk of having their best selling products wiped out on the wrong side of a bulldozer.

While they do not specify exact figures, one of the more interesting aspects of the press release is the year over year growth and global footprint that Milanoo’s growth suggests is possible for the counterfeit apparel industry. We’ve previously noted that the online promotions counterfeiters employ often trump the original brands’ efforts, but for all of their savvy it’s still normally something of an organic process; the replica sellers don’t have the budgets for agencies and professional promotion. More concerning for the brands behind the original designs, the institutional funding attached to this investment would also seem to indicate that may be changing, and this shadowy segment of the fashion industry is gaining legitimacy faster than anyone may have known.