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Sweetgreen, one of the earliest "better for you" quick-serve restaurant chains, has filed confidentially for an IPO, Axios has learned from multiple sources.

Why it matters: The company has been a rumored IPO candidate for years, and now is coming out as a post-pandemic growth play.

Why it also matters: Axios runs on Sweetgreen. There's a store on the ground floor of our headquarters, and it's unclear if we would have launched on time had it not been for copious amounts of kale and quinoa bowls.

Behind the scenes: Sweetgreen never seriously pursued the SPAC route, and will seek to list in the fall. No word yet on how much it plans to raise, except that it will be more than the $100 million "list price."

The pitch: Expect Sweetgreen to hype how it correctly identified a coming consumer trend upon launch in 2007, and that its hundred-plus stores have only scratched the surface of what it believes could be a Chipotle-sized opportunity.

ROI: The company raised around $670 million in VC funding, including a round earlier this year at nearly a $1.8 billion post-money valuation.

  • Investors include: Revolution, T. Rowe Price, Red Sea Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Signatures Capital, Scott Belsky, Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud.

Bottom line, per Axios editor-in-chief Nick Johnston: "I'll be spending another $15 on some kale today so makes sense they're worth billions."

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.