Equity

This was saw Equity back on the live-taping game, with Mary Ann, Natasha, and Alex gathering with Grace and the TechCrunch video team (shoutout Julio and Yashad!) to chat through the week's news. Naturally we had to cut like all hell, but we had a simply terrific time traipsing through the following items:AngelList Ventures raising a $100 million round, and what the deal seems to mean. Mara snagging $6 million for a business that had us all hype, and the Public-Otis tie-up from earlier in the week were also on the docket.Then we worked through the history of the Better.com rolling fiasco, which took a fresh turn through well-trod ground this week by messing up layoffs. Can Better.com get better at being a dotcom? We wrote up a whole thread of what went down on our Twitter.Then we nattered on the recent Acorns and Kin Insurance rounds, following what happens when a company decides that a SPAC is no longer the proper fit for its fundraising and exit plans. Alex has more here. It reminded us of our recent Wednes

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex connected a slew of  seemingly-unrelated news items to answer a big question:How do we balance community and capitalism?The original question we sought to explore was "can you buy a community?" The answer to that question, after further exploration, felt obvious enough: no, so no what? Combining Epic Games' recent acquisition of Bandcamp, Commsor's latest raise, and Lolita Taub's new venture firm, community has a set of sharper standards around it. And nobody wants to let the buzzword go unchecked.Evergreen reminder to take advantage of code “EQUITY” when subscribing to TechCrunch+ for a hefty discount, and gratitude from your favorite trio of tech nerds.We're really enjoying using our Wednesday show to chat through trends and major topics. Tweet us with things you want us to hit on, if you have a particular bee in your bonnet! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Locons

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.As before, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was top of mind, but lots of other things were going on so we had more than plenty to yammer about:The global stock market is taking more body-blows in the wake of rising oil prices and geopolitical instability.EA and Epic are pulling titles from Russia, as other companies have made similar moves; the tech industry has made its stance clear that doing business in Russia is off-limits for some time.FTX is moving into Europe, which struck me as big news, while Klarna reported earnings (more to come on that front).Circular.io raised $10 million for tech talent recruiting, and Founders Fund put together $5 billion for new funds.Closing out, there's an Apple event tomorrow!So, yeah, it's busy out there. Our live show is this Thursday, min

Since the birth of Equity in mid-March of 2017, Chris Gates has been part of the team. Indeed, he helped found the show, and over the next half-decade produced and edited hundreds of episodes. He was, in short, a pillar of the team, and a key driver of how show operated day to day. Which is to say that he brought kindness, and warmth, and care to our work. As one of our colleagues put it, TechCrunch's podcast history can't be written without his name as a huge part of it.Sadly for the Equity team, but equally good news for his new employer, Chris's last day was last Friday. So we gathered to record a special episode of sorts.Natasha, Alex, and Chris sat down and played back a number of clips from the show, including our first-every episode, the first time that Natasha was on the podcast. That sort of thing. And we said some nice things about Chris at the same time.Technically Equity's birthday isn't for a week or two, but we decided to hybridize our look-back with Chris's exit. After all, we're an earnest tea

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex brought on Mary Ann for a special fintech episode, perhaps our spiciest of the year so far. We asked:Are fintech startups playing offense or defense today?To start, we spoke about Ramp and Pipe's latest moves (here, here), which include moving into the travel space and branching out into media and entertainment, respectively, and how they reflect the broader fintech competitive landscape.We even played out a scenario in which we decide if two of the buzziest fintechs will ever compete with each other. (Answer: Yes.)Before you go, make sure you subscribe to Mary Ann's new fintech newsletter and check out her recent TechCrunch+ investor survey from top investors in this noisy sector. Evergreen reminder to take advantage of code "EQUITY" when subscribing to TechCrunch+ for a hefty discount, and gratitude from your favorite trio of tech nerds.Equity drops every Monday at 7:00

Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.This weekend was yet another that was full of news from Ukraine, which meant that the tech market was slightly quieter than usual. But not so quiet that we didn't have lots to chat about, so here's the latest:The Russian startup market isn't huge -- data here -- but when we consider the number of startups in Ukraine as well, the impact of Russia's war and the world's sanctions will bite. Russia is also tangling with American tech giants, which isn't going well.Over the weekend, the American Republican Party bashed large American tech companies. Gone are the days when the GOP was a reliable simp for corporate power. Today it's more fashionable to pump SPACs like TMTG, or Rumble.Weee! raised a huge sum from the second Vision Fund, we report, and OneCard is set to raise a massive round in short order, despite how recently it announced its preceding round. (Oh, and this looks very neat.)And Zip is buying Sezzle, i

Today we gathered to do our live show, something that was scheduled a long time ago. Obviously, the world's condition has changed since. So, we sat down and tore up our notes doc and put most of the show on hold. What we wound up recording was short, and frankly a little bit raw and from the gut.But it just didn't feel right for us to sit and chit chat about funding rounds and executive shuffles when Russia is busy invading a democracy under false pretenses. TechCrunch has some notes on the situation for the tech world in Ukraine, which is worth a read.That's it from us. Equity will return in short order when we have our heads on straight. Hugs, and godspeed.Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrun

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked:How has the great resignation changed the way startups hire? The conversation started with defining the Great Resignation and sharing numbers to back the sentiment that everyone can't stop talking about. As always, the flowed to naturally care more about the employees within startups, and their feelings, than employers and the power they've traditionally sat atop. To check our 'what about VC' box, we talked through what startups are facing today in terms of a labor market, how it has changed, and how they might be able to compete with big-tech's big dollars. After all, is any company going to be able to beat Meta on comp? Probably not.Alex thinks VCs are the new recruiters, which will help startups some. From the other angle -- putting labor in our remit and not capital, for once -- Natasha wants to ditch her 9-5 to represent Shopify employees, it seems. We won't let

Every Monday, or Tuesday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.We are a day late here thanks to the American holiday, which means that it's going to be a short week -- here at least. But that doesn't mean that things are slow. In fact, the opposite:Russian military aggression in Ukraine is hammering the global stock market, although not everywhere it's worth noting. Crypto prices are also flat to down, generally. Most crypto tokens are off sharply in the last week.SoFi is buying Technisys for $1.1 billion. The deal isn't receiving rave reviews from Wall Street, but for the consumer fintech the concept of bringing its own infra in-house does make pretty good sense.TRUTH Social launched, and struggled to handle early demand. Which is funny given how long it took to build. TechCrunch has more here.FTX.us wants to bring crypto to a game near you. The Verge has the key quote here, I will not, but it failed to lift my general skepticism.And we have so much more here

This is Saturday, which means it's not a usual day for us to drop an episode. But what are we if not try-hards at heart? So, we're back today.What do we have on store for you? I brought Anshu Sharma onto the podcast -- and a Twitter space, so make sure you are following the podcast, yeah? -- to chat interest rates, technology growth, startup valuations, and how they all tie together. Sharma was the right person to have on the show because he's been a big tech employee (Oracle, Salesforce), an investor (Storm Ventures, and as an angel), and he's a founder to boot. So he's been around not just the block, but several in the world of technology over time.TechCrunch has covered SkyFlow, his startup, a few times including its most recent fundraise.https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/16/welcome-to-the-post-pandemic-economy-startups/Sharma finds some of the in-market worry about rising rates harming tech stocks silly. His thesis boils down to the value of growth on a longer time-horizon than what a DCF-tuned spreadsheet m

This week, Natasha and Alex and Mary Ann got together with Chris and Grace to rock our regular Friday news roundup. This time, however, with extra zip as we're staring down a long weekend that, let's be clear, everyone needs.Regardless, here's the show rundown:Don't call us your metamate, friend.Startups news of the week: Ro raises even more, Airbase partners with Amex, and Deel wants to give employers a way to fund their payroll in crypto, no matter where their employees are based.The crypto regulatory world is heating up, with news from both India and the United States to chew on. Our read is that some regulation is good, but not every loss can be spun as a win.We also took a look at the mental health market for people of color through the lens of MindFi in the APAC region, and She Matters here in the United States. We had some startup-style questions, but are generally bullish about the companies.And we closed with the cannabis market of both Germany, and the United States. Alex and Natasha are bullish on,

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked:What can startups learn from the rise, and now struggles, of Hopin? For companies that grew like weed, what’s next? In the show, we talked through Hopin's meteoric rise and why we called them the fastest growth story of the era, comparable or better than what Slack and other well-known growth stories managed during their own ascent. However, with Hopin now cutting staff after raising mountains of cash and buying a half-dozen smaller companies, it's clear that hyper-scaling has limits.The economy is changing, again, which is also going to shake up which startups have tailwinds, and which have headwinds. Just like it did before. Hopin is perhaps a very visible canary, but it is hardly the only startup that rode COVID-19's economic disruptions to new heights, which means it won't be the only company left to navigate a changed world when the winds shift.https://techcrunc

Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news, and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week. Today we had were reeling in the wake of the American football championship, and the fact that is once again snowing where Alex lives. Alas.But snow or not, the news was fascinating:We chewed on the Just Eat delisting situation, which appears to be a cost-cutting move. Delivery Hero is also struggling, and the value of Deliveroo is in the toilet. So it's not clear that European food delivery will wind up being the business that many expected it to be. What about in America? We get DoorDash earnings in due time, so we'll learn more but the news doesn't augur well.And shares of Splunk are set to rise sharply this morning in the wake of late Friday news that Cisco is interested in buying Splunk for around $20 billion. Normally such a deal wouldn't excite us much as Splunk hasn't been a startup for a long time, but the deal possibility does say that anti-trust concerns aren't stopping some major firms from pursu

We had the full crew aboard today for our live taping, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Overall, it was a success? Our streaming tech took us to various Internet platforms, and people came to Hopin and asked questions. Thank you! It's always a risk to do something new, so thank you for making it a win.But enough of all that, what did we talk about? Here's the rundown:Funding rounds from Mos (edtech + fintech), Alchemy (blockchain infra), and Cooks Venture (patented chickens). The last round got the most attention during the recording, leading to questions about the ethics of eating meat.Peloton's news, and the pandemic effect on companies was up next. Or more specifically, the changing impact of the pandemic on companies. Peloton is suffering in the pandemic's wake (although some argue that is due more to mismanagement than the pandemic), but other companies are coming out of the dip in reasonable form.From there we dug into the ethics of ventu

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex crawled through the Metaverse, leaning on Facebook's latest earnings and Microsoft's newest appetite as somewhat of a map.Our question, after much thinking, gets into the heart of what the Metaverse is built for:Will the metaverse be for work, or for play? We’re not picking sides, necessarily, but exploring how two companies within Big Tech are staking bets in the digital world, and how we think those bets will shake out long term for them and the startups that look up to them.Facebook seems to be taking a work-styled approach, Microsoft is big in games, and startups are trying a host of different methods for building our digital next. Who is right? Who will win? And how will we get here? That's what we wanted to dive into.The Satya Nadella interview that we mentioned is here, as well as Natasha's piece on virtual HQs.  Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with

Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news, and record notes on what's going on to kick off the week. Today we had a fun mix of news, and things that made us laugh.The Spotify-Rogan situation continued as last week ended, with more episodes of the show coming down. More apologies. And more of Spotify trying to straddle the difference between platform and publisher, while hoping to reap the rewards of both while not fully owning up to the responsibility.Wag is going public, and my body is ready.From the funding round front, we had quick notes on Swing, which raised a $24 million Series B, and Reliance Health, which raised a $40 million Series B.And to close us out, an analogy about Facebook through the lens of Alphabet's Other Bets line item.Lots of Equity is coming this week, including our first live show of the year. It's free and you can come hang out, watch us flub, and ask questions! See you Thursday! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator.

Hello and happy weekend from the Equity crew! We had a busy week, including a Twitter Space with Natasha and Alex taking to the mics to dig into some tasty public-market news. Naturally our show is more startup-focused than public-market centered. But! We can learn a lot from the world of public companies that have a wide footprint inside particular tech niches that matter for younger companies.So when we digest PayPal's results and what investors did to its value this week, we are not super interested in PayPal per se, but more what its results can tell us about the fintech world more generally. After all, around a fifth of all venture capital dollars invested last year went to fintech startups. And Alphabet, it has deep ties to the public cloud space, and the advertising market, both places where startups live and play.https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/come-hang-with-us-for-live-recordings-of-techcrunch-podcasts-equity-and-found/We do the occasional live taping on Twitter, so make sure you are following us

We had the full crew aboard today, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex.Last week we promised Cute Farming Robots, and this week we delivered, along with a lot more. But first, the Equity team along with our sister podcast Found are doing live recordings starting soon. You can find out more here, but Equity will be live-taped on Hopin next Thursday. Come hang out, it should be fun!https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/come-hang-with-us-for-live-recordings-of-techcrunch-podcasts-equity-and-found/Now, the show rundown:Funding rounds from Pluto (corporate spend in the Middle East), Free Agency (agents for tech talent), and Metafy (video game coaching) got us started. From a host of rounds this week, we chose the most interesting for your delectation. If you want more on gaming, check out our Wednesday show where we niche down into the universe, or in this case, the metaverse.The new Seven Seven Six fund got us into the crypto investing beat, which Alex exp

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex brought on the Most Online™ reporter at TechCrunch, Amanda Silberling to talk about one of her recent pieces, "maybe creator funds are bad."The column, mixed with the recent saga between Spotify and Joe Rogan, helped us ask a bigger question for this week's episode:What makes a platform economically viable for creators?It's no small question. Creators are a key plank in every platform's success, from TikTok to YouTube to Instagram to, well, wherever you watch or listen to stuff made outside of major studios. But the financial relationship between platform and provider -- creator, in other words -- is often fraught and broken.Creator funds are some proposed fix to the situation, but we find the to be more band-aid than holistic solution. Rev splits are good, and seemingly more sustainable, but with YouTube's ad load reaching truly epic proportions, they may not be a fix-all

This Monday show actually felt a bit old-school, in that the weekend controversy in tech has spilled over into the working morning, meaning that we need to talk about it. But first, markets:After the somewhat punishing start to last week, today's trading is somewhat more staid. Global equities are moving, but nothing suicidal, and cryptos are off a bit in the last 24 hours, but up in the last seven days. Naturally, given what has happened in recent trading sessions, all that could change in a moment but at least we're starting in un-choppy waters.The Joe Rogan furor continued. After several musicians decided to take their music off the service in protest of Spotify's decision to pay for material that those artists viewed as undercutting public health, Spotify made some of its rules public and said that it will append COVID-19 notes to podcasts that discuss the pandemic. We talk about why.In startup-land, FTX has raised another huge round, TCV is putting more late-stage money into early-stage rounds, and Bambo