Equity podcast
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A knock against bootstrapping
Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week under the guidance of Chris and Grace, which meant we had the full team. And speaking of teams, Mary Ann is joining the Friday show on a weekly basis now. She’s been a friend for years, and a colleague now twice-over for Natasha and Alex and we could not be more excited.
That personal news aside, here’s the rundown for today’s show!
- Funding rounds in the logistics and infra markets: We went physical-world with our funding round roundup this week. BridgeLinx put together the largest seed round in Pakistan’s history, Releaf is doing incredibly interesting agtech work in Nigeria and Stord’s huge round from earlier in the week brought us to Atlanta.
- And oh boy has Atlanta had a week. Extra Crunch did a deep dive into the city’s superlative startup fundraising in recent quarters, and, of course, one of its home-grown startups sold to Intuit for $12 billion just a few days ago. We had a few thoughts on the Intuit-Mailchimp transaction, even if we tried to steer clear of territory that we’ve already tread. For more about the controversy, Business Insider wrote about how some Mailchimp employees are reacting to the deal.
- From there we turned to a layoff story. Casper, the DTC mattress company that is now public, had another round of layoffs that cut three C-suite executives. It brought us into a conversation about how Apple’s tracking updates are impacting startups in this category more broadly, and if more layoffs are on the horizon.
- And then there were IPOs to discuss. Natasha talked us through the news that Quizlet may go public soon, which meant we had to chat edtech for a minute. Rounding out the Going Public conversation was notes on both Toast and Freshworks. Alex does not apologize for his lame joke, we hasten to add.
Disrupt is next week, so expect some possible changes to the regular Equity show lineup if the news cycle gets dicey. Hugs!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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The Equity crew riffs on the Intuit-Mailchimp news
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
We are back! From this morning, I suppose. But the news cycle doesn’t wait for our publishing schedule, so the Equity crew got together to yammer all about the Intuit-Mailchimp acquisition.
A $12 billion deal composed of stock and cash, it’s a big one. And as Mailchimp has both a history of bootsrapping and a founding story in a non-Silicon Valley city we had lots to chat about.
As a general reminder, if you do listen to the show, hit us up on Twitter as we are doing more and more of these Spaces. They are good and relaxed fun, so don’t take them too seriously. We like to have fun.
Alright, Equity is back on Wednesday with our regularly scheduled programming. Chat then!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!
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The pure hell of managing your JPEGs
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris were joined by none other than TechCrunch’s own Mary Ann Azevedo, in her first-ever appearance on the show. She’s pretty much the best person and we’re stoked to have her on the pod.
And it was good that Mary Ann was on the show this week as she wrote about half the dang site. Which meant that we got to include all sorts of her work in the rundown. Here’s the agenda:
- Funding rounds from: Ramp, which raised $300 million at a $3.9 billion valuation; NoRedInk, which put together an impressive $50 million Series B; and Playbook, which is building a sort of Dropbox for designers. Each company gave us something different to noodle on, be it the diverging strategies at Ramp and Brex, how NoRedInk is different from Grammarly, and why Dropbox is not the Dropbox for designers.
- Then we spun the globe to narrow our focus to Latin America, a booming startup scene that Mary Ann recently profiled for Extra Crunch. In a nutshell, venture capital is helping drive an enormous wave of startup activity in the region — or perhaps a wave of startup activity is driving a boom in venture investment? — leading to huge companies, and perhaps some tech-powered inclusion of more folks into the modern banking and digital economy. (For more, here are notes on the Brazilian market’s rising exit tally! And Flink raised, which was worth chewing on as well.)
- We quickly pivoted to the hot-button issue of the moment for every startup (and business): hiring. Natasha noted how startups used to focus on runway, and now they are looking to fill empty seats amid the great resignation.
- Finally, we nattered about huge venture results from Boston, big numbers from Austin and what increasingly feels like an everything bubble. Chicago is doing well, too. Pick a city, it’s putting up big numbers.
And that’s a wrap, for, well, at least the next five seconds.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Politico sells, Forbes SPACs and Vice cuts
The Equity crew felt that there was enough media news out recently that we simply had no choice but to fire up a Twitter Space and have a chat. The above episode is a discussion of a few things, in a loose and relaxed manner, so don’t take any of the Verizon jokes too seriously, Verizon, as we still work for you. For a few more days.
Regardless, here’s what Danny and Alex got into:
- Politico sells for $1 billion: Its new parent company Axel Springer is also buying the rest of Politico Europe and all of Protocol at the same time. This deal exploded everyone’s Twitter feed due to its scale, and the fact that it was one heck of an exit for a media company. One billion dollars? For media? In this economy? Yes!
- Forbes is going public via a SPAC: Yep, the venerable Forbes magazing and its enormous digital arm are taking the blank-check route to the public markets, which means that we got its numbers and time to stroll through them. Our take is that Forbes has done massive work to take its IRL brand and extend it into the digital world. The company has big plans to boot, and will be worth more than $800 million when it combines.
- Layoffs hit Vice: As Vice turns its focus to video content — you’ve heard this story before — it is shedding some of its editorial staff. The layoffs were a stinkbomb on Media Twitter after the other news of the week, but were sadly not a huge surprise. The company’s union decried them as something of a yearly recurrence. Not good, not good at all.
And there’s more media news to come. Our parent company Verizon Media is expected to close its sale to Apollo on September 1 or sometime soon after, which means we will either be hosting Equity regularly as always, or we’ll be hosting the RUDE (Recently Unemployed Due to (Private) Equity) podcast.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Men are a niche demographic
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Danny was back, joining Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris to chat through the week’s coming and goings. But, before we get to the official news, here’s some personal news: Danny is stepping back from his role as co-host of the Friday show! Yes, Mr. Crichton will still take part in our mid-week, deep-dive episodes, but this is the conclusion of his run as part of the news roundup. We will miss him, glad that his transitions and wit will continue to be part of the Equity universe.
Who will take the third chair? Well, stay tuned. We have some neat things planned.
Now, the rundown:
- Funding rounds: Maven has built a women’s health unicorn, Monte Carlo raised $60 million for data observability and Launch House wants to scale venture community with a fresh $3 million in its accounts. The last round is probably the most controversial one of them all, so each of us took a side and discussed what’s new and old about hacker homes.
- The next crop of key IPOs: Please say hello to the rising seniors of the startup world, companies that are the next IPOs that we are excited about. The list includes Discord, Databricks, Chime and Carta, which made headlines this week after setting its own valuation with its own tool. Will investors and startups turn to a third party to value companies? What happens if secondary investors aren’t as into your product as you are? We had a ton of questions.
- Brazil’s burgeoning startup and exit market: In the wake of Nuvemshop raising a zillion dollars, it was time to sit down and talk about Brazil. Alex and Anna Heim have been rigorous in their reporting on the fascinating exit market. Who knew dual-listings were so dramatic?
- After traveling overseas, we went very close to home to speak about the news industry. Danny had a piece about informed., which a trio of media veterans believe could fix the economics that plague subscription-based publications. The nuts and bolts are in the episode, but prepare to debate if you’re the kind of reader that likes a snack, or the whole lip-smackin’ meal.
- Finally, we discuss the wack reality that YikYak is indeed back.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Crypto’s coming of age moment
This week Danny and Alex and Chris took to Twitter Spaces to chat about the current state of the crypto economy, and hang out with friends in a live Twitter Space. We’re doing more of these, so make sure that you are following the show on Twitter.
As a small programming note, I forgot to tell the folks who chimed in during the chat that we were recording it, so we had to cut most the Q&A portion of the show. We got Ezra’s permission, thankfully. The mixup was a bummer as we learned a lot. In the future, we’ll not make that mistake and keep all the voices.
So, what did we talk about? The following:
- The current state of crypto regulation in America, and how the government may screw everything up. In short, tech moves fast, and government moves slow. This creates friction.
- Coinbase kicked the ever-loving shit out of its Q2 earnings. But as it turns out the future for trading-powered companies could include a few quarters of slower results.
- And everyone wants to fund the next Coinbase. You can understand why. The company is printing cash lately, helping drive more investment into localized exchanges in different markets.
Ok, we’re back Monday with your regularly scheduled programming!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Don’t give your weed dealer all your data
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Our beloved Danny was back, joining Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris to chat through yet another incredibly busy week. As a window into our process, every week we tell one another that the next week we’ll cut the show down to size. Then the week is so interesting that we end up cutting a lot of news, but also keeping a lot of news. The chaotic process is a work in progress, but it means that the end result is always what we decided we can’t not talk about.
Here’s what we got into:
- A little URL to IRL update from Natasha, who just got back from an edtech conference.
- How one VC got hit by ransomware, and why stolen LP data could be a wake-up call for investors.
- The crew chatted through some Cloud 100 numbers, and riffed for a minute on Figma, Gusto and Mailchimp, companies all reportedly worth around the $10 billion mark.
- From the early-stage funding round side of things, we noodled on Surfside’s $4 million raise, and the capital that Pave recently attracted. Felt also raised money to make maps more mainstream, which had us thinking about use cases galore.
- In unicorn-land, Trendyol raised a mountain of cash, while UpGrad became India’s newest unicorn.
- Climate change is going to mean lots more companies need to handle disaster prep, Danny argues. His recent EC-1 here about RapidSOS got into the deep and complex world of three simple numbers: 911.
- And we ended the show with a riff on Salesforce+, which we had fun with but also tried to take seriously because we are journalists after all.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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When the economic tide goes out, we’ll see which VCs are naked
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week we were back to full strength, with Danny, Natasha and Alex joined by Chris to chat through the latest venture capital brouhaha. Namely, whether or not venture capital is about to get shaken to its core, or if we’re really parsing some long-term economic trends that will eventually revert.
Here’s a rundown:
- Sam Lessin kicked off the Twitter conversation by positing that venture capital as we know it is kaput, with software and later-stage investing possibly seeing the most disruption.
- Both Alex and Crunchbase News posted responses to the concept, which could best be summarized as yeah, but.
- However, the point that there is a lot of non-venture money flooding into startups is both real and material, and worth chewing on. So, masticate we did, parsing which areas of startup investing might be the most winsome for the VCs we spend so very much time talking to.
The direction and future of the venture capital world has largely been lost amidst a sea of large numbers. New megarounds. New unicorns. That sort of thing. But inside the rising tide of capital available to private companies has been a mix-shift of sorts. The question is where that goes long-term. We tried to posit a few things that could happen next.
Equity is back on Friday!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Monday: Apple’s privacy flap continues as crypto regulation looms
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 me here.
It’s going to be a busy week, with a Samsung event and a host of earnings reports that we’ll have to pay attention to. But more important there are a few stories still dominating the news cycle:
- Apple’s privacy choices: The American hardware company’s plans to scan iPhones for some illegal material is once again raising the issue of privacy versus safety.
- China’s tech crackdown: The continued clampdown by regulators continued this weekend with Tencent once again under the spotlight.
- The American crypto regulatory push: This is still causing waves this morning as Congress works to pass a major bill that could include crypto regulations that are opposed by industry leaders.
All that and we also riffed on the Siemens-Sqills deal, Cornerstone OnDemand going private and Delivery Hero buying a piece of Deliveroo.
And, for added flavor and fun, Canopy Servicing just raised a $15 million Series A, while Siga OT Solutions raised a $8.1 million Series B.
All that, and we got to talk stocks! Hugs and love from the Equity crew — chat Wednesday!
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!
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Growth is not enough
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
We were a smaller team this week, with Natasha and Alex joined by Grace and Chris to sort through a week that brought together both this quarter’s earnings cycle and the Q3 IPO rush. So, it was just a little busy!
Before we get to topics, however, a note that we are having a lot of fun recording these live on Twitter Spaces. We’ve found a hacky way to capture local audio and also share the chats live. So, hit us up on Twitter so you can hang out with us. It’s fun — and we may even bring you up on stage to play guest host.
OK, now, to the Great List of Subjects:
- Robinhood went public! Yep, at long last, it is done. The company priced at $38 per share, the low end of its range, and had a medium-weak day of trading once it started to float. In short, Robinhood seems to have deftly priced its IPO, leaving zero fat on the table. It’s now public and richer than ever. More here.
- Earnings! We took a moment to chat about earnings reports from Alphabet, Microsoft and Shopify. Why? Because we care lots about the cloud and platform companies. So, we took a minute to discuss public cloud results and what Shopify got up to.
- Batteries! Tesla is moving toward iron-based batteries and is looking to source other materials direct. At the same time, battery recycling is raising lots of cash and Nikola is not dead. We call it two truths and a lie.
- Unicorns and soon-to-be’s: Contentful raised $175M at a $3B valuation from Tiger for its content delivery service; Squire, a barbershop tech platform, tripled its valuation (again) with Tiger Global (again); and Class squashed acquisition rumors with SoftBank Vision Fund II funding,
- More venture rounds! To cap off our venture roundup, two neat healthtech investments stood out, namely rounds from Oova and Peppy. Both startups agree with the idea that hormonal health is a massive yet nascent opportunity. (We did an entire show about the imbalanced world of hormone startups if you’re interested).
- We ended on a musical note, which, luckily for you all, didn’t include us singing: Meet a quartet of early-stage music startups.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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