Equity

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week the team — Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace — recorded a bonus Equity Shot to help our listeners make sense out of the Gamestop trading bonanza happening all over the internet. The story is fast-moving, and news continues to break (twice during our recording, in fact) about how trading apps such as Robinhood are responding to the tear. Still, this type of story is worth a temperature check and timestamp because it feels like it's a pivotal moment in many ways.Here's our coverage on the site so far for people playing catch up: How Trading Apps are responding to the Gamestop fustercluck - This piece from yesterday started our coverage of the response from trading apps concerning GameStop Gamestop, meme stocks, and the revenge of the retail trader - This piece dug into what the initial story was about, with some jokes Could meme stocks like gamestop kill bitco

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday,  our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and make sure to check out last week’s main ep, which was super-packed and a real treat.This morning the news was heavy, so here's your rundown to get you into the show:New funds for Clubhouse! TechCrunch has the story here, but I wonder why the app needs more money this soon. You can lay your own bets on how it performs, but at least it's fun to see consumer stuff get funded.Postmates staff are heading for the exits, and there's an IPO coming up that is both huge and under your radar.Chamath is doing the SPAC thing again. Again. And Taboola is also going public via a SPAC.IMVU raised $35 millionPula raised $

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week we — Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace -- had more than a little to noodle over, but not so much that we blocked out a second episode. We try to stick to our current format, but, may do more shows in the future. Have a thought about that? equitypod@techcrunch.com is your friend and we are listening.Now! We took a broad approach this week, so there is a little of something for everything down below. Enjoy!Hims is going to SPAC itself onto the public markets, which should prove interesting for other D2C startups eyeing the same move.The final quarter of 2020 and the full year brought an ocean of capital to bear on US startups, something that we delighted in chewing on. Fintech is also hot as all heck.Plaid is building a fintech accelerator, which we thought was cool.An edtech startup based in Nigeria raised a $7.5 million Series A on the back of a really neat distribution

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity (Monday) Tuesday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and make sure to check out last week's two episodes, covering all the news sans ecommerce, and then all the ecommerce news.We're here on a Tuesday due to an American holiday, but that short break did not mean that the world's news volume slowed down in the slightest. Here's the rundown:From the weekend: The story of a fired GitHub employee ended as you expected it would, with a small twist; the Microsoft company's head of HR is leaving. Not sure from this remove is this is a firing, or merely finding someone to axe over the error, but the fact that they are leaving stood out.Auto1 Group is going publ

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode!Again!There is enough going on that to avoid failing to bring you stuff that we think matters, we are back yet again for more. This time around we are not talking Roblox, we're talking about ecommerce, and a number of rounds -- big and small -- that have been raised in the space. Honest question: do y'all plan to release news on the same week? Are trends a social construct?From Natasha, Grace, Danny, and your humble servant, here's your run-down: Webflow raised $140 million in a round that it says it did not need. This is not a new thing. Some startups are doing well, and don't burn much. So investors offer them more at a nice price. In this case $2.1 billion. (Webflow does no-code Checkout.com raised $450 million. The rich really do get richer. In this case the founders of Checkout.com, whose company is now worth arou

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week we -- Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace -- had a lot to get through, as the news volume in early 2021 has been rapid, and serious. Sadly this means that some early-stage rounds missed the cut, though we did make sure to have some Series A material in the show.So, what did we the assembled crew get to? Here's your cheat-sheet:The demise of the Plaid-Visa deal, our chat with the CEO of the fintech unicorn, and what the failed transaction could mean for startup valuations more broady.Why the $1.4 billion Nuvia exit to Qualcomm is impressive in scale, and puzzling. This topic also gave Danny a chance to talk about chips, his favorite thing.Auto-insurance rates can often depend on highly variable demographic data like marital status, income, and education. Loop is a new seed-stage startup that wants to make the process more equitable. It landed millions this week, underscori

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here —and don't forget to check out the extra episode we dropped on Saturday, as there was just too much to talk about last week.So, what's on the docket for today? A great host of things:Trump was broadly deplatformed, which is controversial not only amongst his political allies and acolytes, but also amongst those worried that fringe-yet-not-wrong views could suffer in the future.Parler, a Twitter clone that tried to claim the mantle of free speech -- despite having posting rules -- was cut off by major tech companies over its inability to censor calls for violence. It had recently hit #1 in the App Store.Bitcoin a

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We're back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode!The normal crew assembled, including Alex, Natasha, Danny, and Chris, to chatter about a chunk of creator and gamer news. And some big numbers, the sorts that we always find fun to chat about.A sneak peek at what we discussed during this second-ever Equity Leftovers:Roblox's epic pre-IPO raise, and its decision to go public through direct listing instead of the IPO that it had previously planned.Niantic buying a gaming platform with an esports-focus.Nintendo buying a gaming studio, leading the crew to declare that the famous company is the Disney of video games.Cameo, which allows fans to pay celebrities for personalized messages, is on a hiring spree after bringing in $100 million in transactions last year. The Information says that the company is seeking funding, which isn't entirely surprising. Axios reports that it has bro

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Happy 2021, or as our own Danny Crichton aptly names it, December 38, 2020.Equity crew is back to start the new year in full force, with Alex, Natasha, and Danny on the mics and Chris behind the scenes. The reunion led to extreme Dad joke energy from all of us, which helped get through the mountain of tech news that we had in front of us.In fact, there was so much to talk about that we have a bonus episode coming out Saturday dealing with Roblox and the gaming environment. Stay tuned.For now, here's what's in today's episode:The remote work space is rushing to cure your Zoom fatigue, or at least give you new ways to handle it. This week, we saw GitHub alumni raise millions for a video repository tool, and Teamflow raise more for a virtual platform meant to mimic the serendipity (and productivity) of your currently-shuttered office.WeLink raised a $185 million Series A round and, wh

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out the second of our two holiday eps, the most recent looking at what we think might happen this year.What did we get into today? A great question. Here's the rundown:Tesla reported pretty strong deliveries, as did smaller electric vehicle companies. What the strong figures could mean for startups, however, remains to be seen.Bitcoin had a pretty good end to the year, which could bolster Coinbase's impending IPO.Hundreds of workers at Alphabet want to unionize.Didi could go public this year, which means we could see a third ride-hailing company provide us access to its numbers. Pleas

What could go wrong?Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. As you can see, this is our yearly predictions episode. Our behind-the-scenes guru Chris Gates joins us on the mic, we take shots at our prior prognostications, and nosh on what we feel is positively persaged.As always, this episode is in good fun. If you don't agree with we think is up ahead, that's fine. You're probably right. But we're nothing if not up for a challenge, so we kept the tradition alive this year.This is the last Equity episode of 2020. And while we can't tell you yet what our plans are for 2021, we can say -- nay, project -- that there are a lot of fun and big things coming for Equity. We're planning our busiest year ever, by far.And with that, we're out of here. Thanks for several million downloads this year, our biggest annum to date.  Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out the first of our two holiday eps, the last one talking to VCs about what surprised them in 2020.Anyhoo, from vacation, here's what Chris and I got up to:A report looking at how ecommerce changed during 2020.The epic carnage surrounding the Chinese government's clamping down on its tech sector (more here, and here from TechCrunch).Lalamove raised $515 million in a Series E.Yuanfudao raised another $300 million.Indian startups did not have the strongest year of venture fundraising, which felt a bit surprising.And it doesn't appear that Japan did either.But here in the United States,

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Today is our holiday look-back at the year, bringing not only our own Danny and Natasha and Chris and Alex into the mix, but also five venture capitalists who we got to leave us their notes as well. The goal for this episode was to reflect on a year that no one could have ever predicted, but with a specific angle, as always, on venture capital and startups.We asked about the biggest surprise, non-portfolio companies to watch, and trends they got wrong and right. There was also banter on Zoom investing (Alex came up with Zesting, but taking suggestions if anyone come up with a better moniker), and startup pricing.Here's who we asked to call into our super Fancy Equity Hotline:Sarah Kunst, Cleo CapitalTurner Novak, GeltLolita Taub, The Community FundGarry Tan, InitializedIris Choi, FloodgateThanks to them all for participating, and of course you, our dear Equity list

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds, and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out our latest main episode, which spent a good bit of time talking about OnlyFans.The weekend was busy, as always, so there was a lot of chew over this morning. Here's a partial list:SoftBank is going to put together a number of SPACs.Indian fintech Pine Labs has raised $75 million to $100 million at a valuation of around $2 billionRealPage is selling to private equity for $9.6 billionZoom is under fresh scrutiny here in the USBolt has raised $75 million more in a Series C1. We talk about why that's fun, and its current competition.Group14 has raised a $17 million Series B that has

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.For the first time in donkey's years, we didn't have our full crew this week. Instead, we had just Natasha and Chris and myself -- we had to survive without Danny while he took the week "off" to "relax."But our depleted ranks did not mean that news was waiting for us to reassemble. Indeed, there was a mass of stuff to get through:Atlanta-based Presso raised $1.6 million for its in-unit dry cleaning tech, which we thought was neat.OpenSensors raised $4 million for its air-monitoring tech after a history of bootstrapping.Lantern, which helps folks plan for their death, is having a big year. It raised $1.4 million.Public raised $65 million, the same week that Robinhood came under fire by the Massachusetts securities group, and the SEC. Robinhood will pay $65 million to settle the SEC's charges without admitting wrongdoing.And then in the world of product, we chatted a

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds, and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Thursday’s episode that dug into the impact of celebrity endorsement, and investment.This morning we had a lot to get through, so here are the headlines:Stocks are set to rise as the COVID-19 vaccine is initially rolled out.Vista Equity Partners will purchase Pluralsight for $3.5 billion. Good news for edtech? Kinda.Reddit is buying Dubsmash, causing us to ask just what the message board unicorn is building.EA is buying Codemasters.Appboxo has raised $1.1 million, IntellectoKids has raised $3 million, and Cledara has raised $3.4 million.We were also in love with this startup's funding

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.What a week, yeah? Instead of the news cycle slowing as the year races to a close, things are still as hot as ever. We have funding rounds big and small, IPOs, first-day extravaganza and more.Luckily we had the whole crew around -- Chris and Danny and Natasha and I. Here’s the rundown:Career Karma raised $10 million, and we have thoughts and concerns.Skyflow raised $17.5 million in an effort to try to get the Equity team to understand the nuances of different encryption types.Calm raised $75 million, which felt pretty reasonable given reports and its fundraising history.Squire tripled its valuation in a new round that included $45 million in equity capital along with some debt.'We also talked about the DoorDash and C3.ai IPO pops, where Airbnb priced, and who is coming nextAnd we rounded off with what's up with TikTok stars investing in tech startups. Danny was not

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Thursday's epic run of early-stage rounds.It was busy this morning. So, in blocs, here's what the show got to:This COVID news made me smile, even if the markets are set to open lower this morning after a big end to last week. So much for bad labor data mattering, I suppose.Airbnb's IPO range is set to rise, boosting the company's valuation to as much as $36 billion, and $41.8 billion on a fully-diluted basis.Bloomberg got its hands on some Sequoia returns data. Shockingly the data is good. Who could have imagined.Sourcegraph raised even more capital, raising both our eyebrows and its va

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.We're back with not an Equity Shot or Dive of Monday, this is just the regular show! So, we got back to our roots by looking at a huge number of early stage rounds. And a few other things that we were just too excited about to not mention.So from Chris and Danny and Natasha and I, here's the rundown:A hacker house aimed at college-age women and non-binary individuals.What Sketchy is and why it just raised north of $30 million.AgentSync's rapid-fire funding news, and what we can discern from it.Pave's round, Welcome's second this year, and what's up with helping startup employees navigate equity compensation.What Heru is building in Mexico with its new round.How BuildBuddy managed to raise double what it had originally targeted.Then we touched on AI: The new Scale AI round, what happened to Element AI, and Danny's take on some big news from the technology itself.Fin

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.Welcome to an Equity Shot all about the huge, and hugely interesting Salesforce-Slack deal, in which the enterprise social company will be subsumed for the mere price of $27.7 billion.TechCrunch has notes on the deal here, and on what Salesforce expects the acquisition will do for its growth rate here.Some of the drama, we admit, was removed when the deal was presaged several days ago, but that didn't stop the Equity crew from having a lot to say on the matter. Here are some of the topics we discuss:How big is this deal, both literally and figuratively?We talk about the market reception and if the rumors correctly valued the dealDoes Slack deserve snaps or just a simple pat on the back?What does the deal tells us about vertical SaaS tools?The COVID-19 effect on remote toolsWhat does SoftBank have to do with this (and why does SoftBank always have something to do with everything)?And