Equity

This week Mary Ann and Alex got into a mix of growth stories, and some less-than-winsome on the startups that are not having the best 2023:How Lula went frugal and set itself up for a massive up-round in 2023: Mary Ann's recent reporting on Lula was perfect Equity material as it dealt with capital in motion, and a quickly-growing startup. Even more notably, Lula is in the insurtech space, part of the fintech world that has had an up-and-down few years.Weights & Biases raises $50M: Back in the day if a startup raised a big round, and then a smaller round afterwards, we would have worried a little. Today's venture market feels a little bit different. So, MLOps startup Weights & Biases has added $50 million more to its coffers, and we didn't fret too much on the round coming in light compared to its previous tranche. Summing our views, anything ML and AI is hot today, and Weights & Biases is well known. This round was not a shocker.BlueJeans folds: Remember when Verizon bought a Zoom competitor durin

This week, Dominic-Madori Davis came back on the show to chat with Mary Ann and Alex about two of her latest pieces:A lawsuit targeting a grant program that provided small checks to Black women small-business owners. The context here is that there's a movement in the United States to curtail programs that seek to provide access, or opportunity to underrepresented peoples in business and education. Given venture's somewhat embarrassing investment demographics, we struggled to understand the seeming animus behind the suit.Some countries are taking a different track, including the United Kingdom. Dom has more on that topic here.Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup! Talk to you then!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 founders and more! Credits: Equity is produce

Here’s the rundown from this morning, which saw Alex catching up from a few days off last week:Earnings season is slowing down, while global stocks slip to start the week. Crypto is not doing too much to start the week, but do recall that Coinbase earnings came last week.Peak smartphone? In the wake of Apple earnings, questions linger regarding just what is ahead for smartphones and what could get that market moving again. Thankfully for Apple shareholders, the company has done yeoman’s work to build out a services and subscription business. Enough to compensate? Perhaps.A controversial privacy-Internet law in India passed.Triller’s IPO is going to be fun, though your humble podcast team have yet to fully dive into it.And, finally, how do you get a shareholder off your cap table while respecting their upside? Like this!We may be deep in Disrupt prep, but the show continues! We’ll see you Wednesday (and on day one, when Equity will kick off our major event in San Francisco)!For episode transcripts and more, he

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, Chain Reaction. Chain Reaction unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious.  Jacquelyn interviewed Stu Alderoty, chief legal officer of Ripple Labs. Stu spent most of his career working for traditional financial institutions in legal roles at firms like CIT Group, American Express and HSBC and left that world in 2019 to join Ripple.Ripple has been around since 2012, but has been making headlines lately for the recent federal court ruling that stated the XRP token, which is linked to Ripple, is not a security when sold to the general public but can be treated as a security for past XRP sales to institutional clients. We broke down the nitty gritty details of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York federal court ruling for Ripple and what it means for the company, XRP token and crypto ecosystem. We a

This week, Alex and Mary Ann had Sara Mauskopf on the show, the CEO and co-founder of the childcare marketplace, Winnie, and a former Postmates and Twitter denizen. Here’s what we got into:The progress of Winnie over time, and how it found its niche in the childcare marketThe state of care as a venture-backable category, and where startups can find the most impact and business resultsThe reported issues at Papa and the pressures of fundraising-driven growth in care-oriented marketsAnd, of course, why care work is not given its full due and value in our society.We had a blast with this one. Thank you for sticking with Equity for all these years. We’ll see you live at Disrupt!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 founders and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo

Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!Stocks are higher around the world today, but the real story in equities is earnings. This week we are going to hear from AMD, Uber, Pinterest, Shopify, PayPal and Block, Apple and Amazon, Alibaba and Airbnb, Coinbase and Cloudflare. It’s a lot.In crypto-land, things are muted, but it appears that the Coinbase-SEC lawsuit had a bit more behind it than we first realized.Tiger is out of Flipkart, selling its remaining stake to Walmart for $1.4 billion. The American investor did well on its Flipkart investment.Fidelity has cut the value of its investment in Gupshup, but remarked its Reddit, Discord and X investments up some. So, the news is not all bad.Twitter’s rebrand is a go on the App Store and the social app has a new tagline that we alluded to in today’s episode title, while Shein and Temu fight it out for global domination of the fast-fashion market.Whew! What

We had our friend and colleague Kirsten Korosec on the podcast this week, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex got to stretch their legs a bit and talk things that move and beep and boop. Here's what we got into:Deals of the Week: AngelList bought Nova, taking the well-known venture service into the more traditional private equity realm; Waymo is focusing on self-driving cars instead of trucks, which has Mary Ann worried; and Alex wanted to talk about interest rates.On the subject of Earnings: Guess what? AI costs are here, AI revenues are coming as the ad market recovers. For big tech earnings thus far have generally gone well, though not perfectly.Do not miss GM news from the transit desk, of course!And we wrapped with some interesting analysis from the TechCrunch+ team on how funds of funds might be one way to get more LP capital into diverse venture funds.Whew, what a week y'all. It's hot and we are tired, but we had a blast recording this for you. Talk more Monday!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equi

This week, Alex had Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz on to chat about her upcoming book, Extremely Online, the history of online platforms, and the rise of creators.We've covered the creator economy a few times on the podcast over the years, but this addition to our historical coverage is more than worth inclusion. Here's what we got into:All the cool kids are pre-ordering Lorenz's book, which you can find here.Why online work has always been treated like a sideshow: While culture is often created -- or born -- online, there's a disconnect between historical centers of authority and influence, and where it's bubbling up today.The rise and fall of Vine: Vine's massive rise and later implosion is a technology story, a startup story, and the saga of how a platform's userbase and its leadership can often be on different pages. In a sense Vine was a warning of what we'd see later on when it came to platforms winding up at odds with the very folks driving attention their way.New formats, new platforms: It's

Here’s the rundown from this morning:Stocks are mixed around the world: Chinese equities sold off while American shares were set to rise at the open. A massive run of earnings this week should shake up the stock market for tech companies and their traditional brethren alike.In crypto-land, prices are back to where they were pre-XRP decision. I don't know what to make of that, but do know that Worldcoin is still a thing and is now actually out.Twitter's new brand: All hail X, I suppose. Musk's work to defenstrate what we all knew about Twitter, the company is being rebranded to X, which the company intends to be a superapp of sorts. Cool if it works, embarrassing if not.Spotify is finally raising prices, and all I can say is thank god. It was getting weird to get all the world's music for what felt like a song. I want to pay more making the price hike welcome, if still far smaller than it should be.SF really is the new AI hub.Ahead we have Disrupt, which is taking up more and more of my time. See you there!For

Here's what we got into today:Deals of the Week: Layoffs at Cameo, where fintech valuations are today and where they are going, and Egnyte's slow-burn path to an IPO.The end of VanMoof: Raising a lot of money doesn't necessitate a startup's success. Such is the case with VanMoof, which raised nine-figures and built and sold e-bikes. Now it is no more, and we have questions.CEO turnover: As the CEO of OnlyFans steps down, the gang dug into when a CEO can or should step down. Certainly some companies do best, for example, with long-term leadership by a founder. But not all.Generative AI and the writer's strike: It turns out that we're bigger South Park fans than we knew as a group, but that's not really the point. What matters is that a recently released 'AI-generated' episode of the show is driving a conversation today concerning how critical — or not — humans are to the creative process. Google is also busy here.And that's the end of the week! Equity is back on Monday! Chat soon!For episode transcripts and mo

So, what happened in venture capital-land during Q2 2023? A lot, and not very much. We got PitchBook venture guru Kyle Stanford to come back on the podcast to riff with us on the good, the bad, and the late-stage.Here's what we got into:How did American venture perform in Q2 2023? Welcome to the new normal, and why that's actually bad news.How are Seed deals faring, and what about later-stage transactions?How bad is the slow pace of exits today, and what impact will they have on venture capital fundraising itself? More on the topic here.And, any green shoots popping up? Here's a rundown of what could be considered good news.You can read the underlying dataset we were riffing on here, and we are back on Friday with the news roundup! 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, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interview

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!Stocks are largely down around the world following weak Chinese economic data for the second quarter. We’re also heading back into an earnings cycle, so get ready to hear from Tesla and Netflix this week, among other major names.In crypto-land, the XRP/Ripple partial victory drove a short-lived boomlet for many crypto tokens; XRP is the clear winner from last week.Twitter is cash-flow negative, per its CEO, but the company intends to double-down on paying individual tweeters for their high-view activities.While Twitter molts, Threads continues to grow like a weed. Speaking of Meta, the company is in trouble in Norway.On the startup front, Intel invested in Figure, which we think is quite neat, and Thunes is now nearly a unicorn

Here's the rundown from Mary Ann and Alex:A new Chinese AI model had us wondering who is really going to win the AI war and whether governments will play a role — perhaps not the role that they are expecting.A founder that Founders Fund funded is now funding other founders at Founders Fund: Yep.Sticking to the venture theme, is it possible for AI models in venture to actually create a less biased landscape for entrepreneurs? Connetic Ventures thinks so!Two bits of good news: Tech layoffs have dramatically slowed, and slowing inflation could herald the end of interest rate hikes, which could bolster tech valuations. Or at least cut some of the pressure.Finally, as Twitter does what it usually does when a rival service takes off, we asked ourselves how other social media services are doing. We are more familiar with some than others.As always, Equity will be back for you bright and early Monday morning. Talk soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT eve

This week we had a very special guest on the podcast: Matthew Lynley, one of the founding hosts of Equity and a former TechCruncher. Since his Equity days, Lynley went off and started his very own AI-focused publication called Supervised.We brought him back on the show to ask him questions in a format where we can all learn together. Here’s what we got into:From Transformers to GPT4: How attention became so critical inside of neural networks, and how transformers set the path for modern AI services.Recent acquisitions in the AI space, and what it means for the “LLM stack:” With Databricks buying MosaicML and Snowflake already busy with its own checkbook, a lot of folks are working to build out a full-stack LLM data extravaganza. We talked about what that means.Where startups sit in the current AI race: While it’s great to think about the majors, we also need to know what the startup angle is. The answer? It’s a little early to say, but what is clear is that startups are taking some big swings at the industry

Here’s the rundown from this morning:The global stock market is looking mixed, with the leading piece of financial news dealing with inflation data in the Chinese market.On the crypto side of things, there are no massive price movements in key tokens to examine. That said, the NFT market has been turbulent in the last few days due to incentive changes as a key marketplace.An FYI: We are back in earnings season, but there’s little to report on the tech side of things this week. Expect the pace to pick up next week.Ant has a new valuation thanks to a choice to offer share buybacks to existing backers. It’s still worth nearly $80 billion, just a lot less than it might have been valued at back in its 2020 IPO that got scuttled.People like Threads: The new social service from Meta has reached the 100 million sign-up mark rapidly. More on threads here on the TC Podcast.In Startup-Land: FrontRow is shutting down in another blow to Indian edtech, while Propel raised $2.7 million to connect African tech talent to glob

We're switching things up and bringing you two interviews this week, so let's niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest.Mary Ann took the lead this time, and she sat down (virtually) with Immad Akhund, the CEO and co-founder of Mercury. For those who are unfamiliar, the fintech made headlines earlier this year for how it stepped in to help fill the business banking void left in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Here's what the pair caught up on:Mercury's impressive growth in the months since SVB crashedLessons learned from Immad's angel investing experienceWhat Immad calls the "Startup Death Spiral" and how to escape itAs always, Equity will be back for you bright an early Monday morning. Talk 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, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews

Long-time Equity listeners and TechCrunch readers should be familiar with LAVCA, and association of capital managers in the Latin America region. We have reported on its data a number of times. Well, it turns out that LAVCA is part of the larger Global Private Capital Association, which keeps tabs on a host of markets that we're working to cover more carefully as startup activity becomes an increasingly global phenomenon.So to cap off the second quarter, and to get our claws into what is going on around the world, we had Cate Ambrose, the CEO of the GPCA on the show to riff with us about Asia and Africa and Latin America and Central and Easter Europe. Here's what we wanted to find out:How wild was the 2021-era venture peak in less mature startup markets?How resilient are smaller startup ecosystems in a more conservative venture and macroeconomic environment?Are we seeing green shoots anywhere in the world? Or put another way, where is the rebound kicking off?We closed with a short discussion on the role of go

Mary Ann and Alex are back for another busy news week chock full of deals to chew through.Here's the rundown:Deals of the Week: We think that the idea behind the recently-funded Honey Homes is excellent, but we're split about the cost. We also went over Gusto's latest financial achievements and its plans to team up with Remote.Fintech M&A: The biggest deal of the week in fintech was Visa's purchase of  Pismo. We haven't had unicorn-level acquisitions lately, so this one was welcome. Elsewhere in the space, Brex has brought on board a former SVB and a16z denizen, and Ramp bought Cohere.io (not this Cohere, the other one).Other M&A: But those weren't the only deals. Databricks bought MosaicML, IBM bought Apptio, and ThoughtSpot has acquired Mode Analytics.Help, my unicorn is starving: We closed with Alex's look at the declining funding to unicorn and web3 startups, as well as Rebecca Szkutak's latest on the secondary market in the process.Equity will be back on Wednesday as we head off into yet another

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. Mary Ann is taking over today's interview with David Vélez, the co-founder and CEO of Nubank, the $35 billion Sao-Paulo, Brazil-based digital bank that offers credit cards, checking accounts and life insurance to consumers.Equity listeners know that digital banking has been on our minds for some time now, so naturally we were excited to have David on the show. Here's what we got into:How Nubank has achieved -- and maintained profitability -- in this challenging macroeconomic environmentHow not only the LatAm fintech market differs from that of the U.S., but how founders in the region operate their businesses differently from their U.S. counterpartsThe state of digital banks in general and how David sees banking evolving in the next few years from the lens of both a founder and former investor (he once led Sequoia Capital's Latin American investments).Mary Ann and Alex are back on Friday with more Eq

Here's the rundown for the very last Equity Monday of Q2 2023:Crypto's mini-boom in the last week comes after a brutal few weeks of negative headlines; for the crypto-faithful, it must be a breath of fresh air.Startups: IRL was a digital fraud, Vanta is a unicorn to watch after quick ARR growth and a resulting valuation has grown into, and TreasurySpring is riding a changing macroeconomic climate to rapid fintech growth.As Amazon pledges more investment in India, we're seeing a lot of other big economic pieces move. Other American companies are pledging big dollars to the country as Japan looks to buy one of its domestic chip companies, and American investors are putting capital into their own domestic silicon players.Finally, Apptio is selling to IBM for $4.6 billion.Whew! That's a lot, but we had a good time and will see you back here on Wednesday!All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equi