Equity

This week, Natasha spoke to Kristen Anderson, the co-founder and CEO of Catch, an app to provide payroll benefits for people who are self employed, that recently announced it would be shutting down. We're talking about vulnerability, shut downs, building in public and on ramps and off ramps that come with the wild choice to be an entrepreneur. Here's what we got into: Venture capital's role in how a founder builds Making the difficult decision to shut down, and why Catch chose to do so publicly We end with Anderson's return to building, in fintech, despite what her Twitter followers wish. Seems like being close to peak pessimism in fintech is a good thing for forever builders. As always, Equity will be back on Friday with your weekly news round up - and a big announcement - so don't miss it! Until then, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple P

Alex is back with the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Today, we are talking about meme coins, unicorns and the latest from India! The global stock market started the week on pretty good footing. Also, the crypto world is suffering modest indigestion thanks to a new meme coin. On the regulatory front, it appears Coinbase is going to stick with the U.S. Elsewhere in Industry Land, Qualcomm is going shopping, Alibaba's logistics IPO is targeting the Hong Kong market, and the UK is digesting the fact that a local legend is going to list in the United States. From there, it was time to check in on some news, bad and good, from India. We are going to see some interesting earnings results this week, so stay tuned! Equity will be back Wednesday morning! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Tech

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex got right into it with: An update on a startup banking partner collapse that wasn't the First, and probably won't be the Last A section dedicated to sunsetting Poparazzi and a Databricks acquisition (points to whoever can guess how we transitioned from one deal to the next) Next up, we spoke about Finix's latest announcement to go head to head with Stripe, before talking more about the rise of down rounds We ended with BlueSky. Although some of us feel grey about it. And regardless, this piece by Morgan Sung will have you thinking smartly about the new Twitter competitor started by the ol' Twitter boss. We'll be back before you know it, but in the meantime, you can catch us on Twitter @EquityPod. And for the early stage founders out there, don't forget to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023!  For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so s

This week, Natasha Mascarenhas interviewed Sam Chaudhary, the founder of ClassDojo, and Chris Farmer, the founder and CEO of SignalFire, a venture firm that recently announced a $900 million fund to back tech startups. This interview is structured a bit differently as it was actually recorded as a TechCrunch Live session, our weekly show that focuses on helping people start better venture backed businesses. We'll hear from the trio about: What an outsider advantage looks like in startups, per a top investor Why ClassDojo doesn’t see itself as an edtech company How Sam landed early traction with a difficult-to-capture consumer How both Sam and Chris are thinking through the AI question brewing in every office If you want to check out the full video of today's conversation, including a round of Pitch Practice hosted by Matt Burns, head to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more TechCrunch Live! As always, the full Equity crew will be back on Friday, but you can keep up with us in the meantime @EquityPo

Alex is back on the mic for your Monday rundown and  digging into OpenAI, earnings, First Republic Bank, and ARM. Oh, and startups as well! It's another big earnings week, and we're excited to see how Uber, Coinbase, Apple and Hubspot have performed! First Republic Bank is no more. It wasn't shocking to see JPMorgan swooping it up, but we are once again seeing a small bank shutting shop and a big bank getting bigger. Not good! OpenAI is now even richer thanks to a $300 million investment from venture capitalists. It's amazing that the company sold just 1.1% of its equity for nine figures. And Alison raised capital just as AMD filed privately to go public. It's a busy start to the week! Hugs, and we'll be back Wednesday and Friday. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews fo

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex were especially chattery as they waded through a busy week in tech and startups. We're talking AI. We're talking layoffs. And we're talking coffee. Here's what we got into: Three deals of the week from copyright requests around "-GPT" to Ansa, a wallet ready to make you even more loyal to your local cafes to First Republic Bank's tanking share price and all the thoughts that feel all too reminiscent of our reporting just six weeks ago. Fintech venture layoffs, and the state of startup hiring more generally. Based off of Mary Ann's scoop, we got into the nitty-gritty of just how much staff a venture firm needs, and why. Earnings! Alex has spent more time than is healthy reading through recent financial disclosures from tech companies big and small. The result? Decent news for startups. We end with notes on coffee. How does coffee fit into Equity? Well, when it's venture backed and growing, we don't care if it powered by beans or AI. We'll be back in your ears again on

This week, Natasha interviewed Ankur Nagpal, the entrepreneur behind Teachable, Ocho, and Vibe Capital - Ankur's $70 million venture fund, raised last year from over 200 investors. Today, we're talking about: The future of Solo GPs and Ankur's choice to shrink Vibe Capital's fund size How Ankur built, sold, pivoted and launched in public The upside of building in public vs building in private The importance of brand and succession Of course, we ended with a lightning round of questions - including the meaning behind Ankur's tattoo. As always, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann will be back for our weekly news roundup on Friday, but you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live updates and more. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories

Today Alex Wilhelm is talking about Twitter Blue, Lyft, a few startup rounds, and what could kick off the next crypto supercycle. Several major tech companies are reporting earnings this week, strap in for some big news and perhaps even bigger share price movements. The Twitter Blue saga took new turns this weekend, with Musk's personal social network staying in the news once again. If the overall result of said news for the company is good or not remains to be seen. Alex had a few thoughts on what has happened to a number of tech-enabled companies that went public, and have since seen their value evaporate. More here. And then it was time to check in on Super.com's big new round, and the latest from Span! Equity is back Wednesday and Friday! Chat soon! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a sh

This week we recorded at Early Stage, TechCrunch's event for founders who are building startups from the ground up. Sadly, our dear friend Natasha Mascarenhas took ill, and we had to lean on Alex for the episode. Happily, though, Darrell from the TechCrunch team was sitting next to us on the show floor so we tagged him in for some rocket knowledge. Anyhoo, here's the run of show! All things Early Stage: Notes from the show floor, what we can infer about attendance and a vibe check. Elon's new, larger rocket went up (very good) and then went "boom" (not as good). Happily for the space race, the overall result of the launch was good. Rockets have a tendency to go boom when they are new, and it's a bit of the, well, testing process to have them do so. Sure, a non-boom result would have been better, but SpaceX wasn't planning on trying to reuse the parts anyway. Tesla's earnings came out and investors are not that pleased. While there was some good stuff in the numerical set, price cuts at the company and m

 Alex invited Janelle Teng from Bessemer Venture Partners on the program to riff with us on the state of the cloud. That's also the title of Bessemer's latest data dump concerning cloud stocks, startups, AI, and more. Teng, a co-author on the report, walked through some of key bits with us to better explain her firm's perspective, and to answer our critical commentary regarding Figma and why startups should always kill Goliath, instead of joining him for a round of grapes and lounging. You can find the report that we chatted about here, and our early notes thereof here. Finally, a rundown of topics: Is the valuation massacre that startups have survived since late 2021 finally over? Why is investor preference swinging back towards growth from profitability? What is the state of runway at late-stage startups? Is the M&A pause nearly over? And, naturally, AI and SaaS and where VCs see the pair heading! See you at Early Stage tomorrow! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. E

Today we are talking about space, birds and startups! Here’s what Alex got into: Earnings season is coming back! That means Netflix and Tesla this week, and a huge number of big tech companies next week. Data cometh. We were very excited about the launch of SpaceX's massive rocket. It got scrubbed after we recorded, but you can still enjoy our hype about the potential event. We'll have more on the matter when the rocket actually does go up. Rovio is selling to Sega. Yeah, we had to digest that one as well. The sale price shows just how tough it is to be a games company. There's a lot of regulation going on out there in the world. And we wrapped with notes on Loopin and Fleet! See you at Early Stage later this week! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that

This week Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex enjoyed the warming climate and the fact that there are some positive vibes in the venture market as well. Hell, we even had a nine-figure round to chew on! Here's the show rundown: Alex wanted to discuss the latest FTX docs and the recent X.com (formally known as Twitter) news. Natasha brought a new edtech venture fund to the table. Mary Ann wanted to talk about Clear Street's impressive fundraise. From there, we discussed that while the pace at which unicorns are being funded is in freefall, there are still some mega-IPOs coming from select late-stage startups. We will relish the return of S-1 season when it comes. From there it was time to chat AI. Natasha recently went to an AI event in San Francisco, helping us grok the on-the-ground dynamics at play. That, when crossed with different regulatory postures around the world made for a pretty darn interesting segment. And we closed with the opportunity that opportunity funds may afford venture firms. While Lux is st

This week, Natasha spoke with a founder, a psychiatrist and a venture capitalist about founder mental health, a topic that has been a conversation in Silicon Valley for as long as we can remember. The theme has gained renewed momentum due to the startup and venture downturn in general, and exacerbated by a bank failure that still has some folks reeling. It's time for a check-in. Here's who we spoke with for today's show: Pioneer Mind's Naveed Lalani gave us the founder perspective on how to "hustle responsibly" with The Founder Mental Health Pledge, a call to action for investors to support founders in looking at their mental health as a business priority Psychiatrist Dr. Saumya Dave reminded us of the differences between - but also overlap of - therapy, executive coaching and group sessions Graham & Walker's Leslie Feinzaig helped us close out the show with the VC perspective and her own tools for wellness This is, of course, a conversation we want to continue. If you have a story you want to share,

Today, we are talking about crypto, Uber, and how to be petty at scale. Here's what Alex got into: Around the world of capital, we're most confused at certain bits of price stability in the cryptocurrency markets. It feels a bit faux, if that makes sense. Where prices are less steady is the world of YC startups, where, once again, there's complaints amongst venture investors about the valuations that some of the earliest-stage tech companies out there are commanding. Perhaps a greater discount given the state of the world was anticipated. Uber is selling part of Careem in a deal worth $400 million. Uber wants to do things on wheels. A super app company, at least in the Middle East, it is not. But it is about to have a huge new bankroll. The Musk v. Substack battle took up much weekend oxygen, showing that it is often hard to retain one's free speech bonafides when you just don't want to anymore. All that and there are new FTX docs! Huzzah! Let's have a good week, y'all. For episode transcripts and more,

This was Y Combinator week in a sense, with the well-known accelerator showing off hundreds of startups over a two-day period. We had some thoughts about that. But! There was a lot more for Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex to dig into, so we have a little something for everyone today. Here's the show notes, enjoy: First, support our sibling podcasts Found and Chain Reaction in the Webbys! They deserve it, and we're voting for them too. For our Deals of the Week, we had: Monument and Tempest shared patients’ private data with advertisers, Acorns buys GoHenry, and Alex has notes on how the Q1 venture capital market is shaping up. Looking for all the Y Combinator notes your heart could desire? You can find our favorites from days one and two at those links, and read this Natasha piece on why the Bay is Back. We also took the time to discuss the term 'demo day' for an event where there are no, you know, demos. Latin America was back on the show thanks to Mary Ann, giving us a good reminder that we have not spent e

Alex filled in for Natasha as host this week, and to celebrate the end of Q1 2023 and the start of another earnings cycle, we invited PitchBook Senior Analyst Kyle Stanford onto the show. Stanford and his company are key providers of data concerning the domestic and global venture capital markets making him a perfect guest to help kickstart our look at recent venture results, and trends. We had a lot to talk about: Where early-2023 venture aggregates are trending, including a chat about different stages of startup size and how investors are approaching those groups. Sectors that are hot and sectors that are, well, not. When we might get an exit market that actually exists, again. And why Stanford popped our fading optimism that we could get more IPOs later this year. And we had a good time. We hope that this episode helps you form an informed posture towards fundraising for, and operating your company. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT eve

Alex is back with the first episode of our Q2 run. Welcome to the new tranch of 2023! On the show today we riffed through the stock market and crypto sector. The gist? Shares are mixed here in the United States while major crypto tokens are not doing too much. In startup news, Paris is cracking down on e-scooters after a vote, Zamp Finance raised nearly $22 million for a neat way to keep startup cash safe and yield-friendly, and Fourthline reminded us that applied AI is a sentence that we are going to say again and again this year. Tesla's Q1 delivery and production numbers are out, and while the beat certain expectations the results come after price cuts. It will be curious to see what the new figures translate to in financial terms when we get the company's financial results. And then this a16z-Saudi Arabia thing that was a bit weird to chat about, but we took a stab at regardless. The show is back Wednesday and Friday, we'll see you then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast w

AI? Crypto? Equity crowdfunding and former startup founders trying to bribe China? We had it all this week, friends, so please strap in and get ready for another catchup with your besties Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Here's the show rundown in case you want to play along as you listen: Deals of the Week: How Seed Checks could disrupt early-stage fundraising, notes on StellarFi's latest capital raise, and the end of the Lyft founders' operational saga. All about Substack and its equity crowdfunding round, an event that we have lots of good things to say about, and one complaint. Then there was crypto. Let's see: We WTF'd about the latest from FTX's SBF, CZ is in trouble, and more. And we closed with notes on an open letter asking for AI development work to pause — ha -— and had some fun with ChatGPT! It was a hell of a week. We do it again starting Monday! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to

This week, Natasha interviewed a Jack of all trades in the AI world with a focus on governance: Navrina Singh. Navrina is the founder and CEO of CredoAI,  a governance platform helping organizations monitor, measure and manage AI-introduced risks. We're talking about: Navrina's wedge into the world of AI, and when governance went from a lonely conversation to a global focus.  Her experience with Microsoft, observing how the EU AI Act's legislation is coming together, and her work as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) - which advises President Biden and the National AI Initiative Office Regulation, responsible AI and getting over "AI hypocrisy" Casting fear aside as a motivator for change Navrina's thoughts on recent news in AI, including GPT-4's launch and Microsoft's ethical AI team layoffs. As always, Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann will be back for our weekly news roundup on Friday, but you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod for live up

Alex had a lot of ground to cover from the weekend, so let's get started. Here's the rundown: The global stock market is mixed today, if leaning positive. Some concerns about global banks appear to be settling. In contrast, things are quiet on the crypto front. Salesforce is getting a reprieve from certain activist pressure after it took a cleaver to its staffing. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis is slowly coming to a close. TechCrunch has the latest on the sale of the former startup-friendly bank's commercial banking operations. In other tech news: France is cracking down on TikTok and other social apps, and some of Twitter's source code made its way onto GitHub. Finally, Turo is doing fine and could, ahem, drive us toward a reopening of the IPO market. Maybe more unicorns than we thought are going to be ok? How about we have a relaxed week? That would be nice. Something slow and calm to end the quarter? We deserve it, after all! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.  Equ