Equity podcast
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The only take about the future of media is that media is the future
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 U.S. 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 model. The march of live, tech-powered tutoring lives on!
- TripActions raised a pallet of new capital despite having had a somewhat rough 2020 due to the pandemic. It’s a fascinating wager, and one that we will track as it earns out.
- There was lots of news in the movement space, including Microsoft helping put $2 billion into self-driving startup Cruise, electric vehicle startup Rivian raising $2.65 billion from Amazon and others, and Bolt Mobility expanding to new markets.
- Danny’s GPS story.
- Wattpad exits for $600 million, leading to Alex detailing his love of science fiction.
- a16z is doubling-down on its in-house media project, and Forbes is building out a paid newsletter service that we think is very neat.
Like we said, it’s a lot, but all of it worth getting into before the weekend. Hugs from the team, we are back early Monday.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Checkout wants to be Rapyd and Fast
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 around $15 billion Checkout.com does, you guessed, online checkout work. Which as Danny explains is complicated and critical.
- We also talked about this Bolt round, for context.
- And sticking to the ecommerce theme, Rapyd raised $300 million at around a $2.5 billion valuation. There is infinte money available for late-stage fintech.
- Early stage as well, it turns out, with Tradeswell raising $15.5 million to help businesses improve their net margins.
- Finally, ending with a chat on infrastructure, Nacelle closed an $18 million Series A.
And now we’re going back to bed.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Monday: Unionization at Alphabet, Tesla’s delivery achievement and CRED raises $81M
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. Please!
- CRED raised $81 million in a huge Series C. Our reporting indicates that the company is now worth more than $800 million.
- Disco, a legal tech startup, has raised $40 million in debt to cap off a $100 million round.
- And here’s the seed link, as promised.
Mostly we’re still making sure that our brains still work and that the return of work really is here. Taking a break was nice. Now the news is coming back, so we are as well. Hugs, and chat Thursday.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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The Equity crew predicts what’s to come in 2021
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. 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.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Monday: No, tech news doesn’t stop over the holidays
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 e-commerce 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, holy shit things were bonkers.
Tune in Thursday for one more fun episode, and then we’re back to regular programming the week after!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Five VCs discuss what surprised them the most in 2020
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 we’re taking suggestions if anyone comes up with a better moniker) and startup pricing.
Here’s who we asked to call into our super Fancy Equity Hotline:
- Sarah Kunst, Cleo Capital
- Turner Novak, Gelt
- Lolita Taub, The Community Fund
- Garry Tan, Initialized
- Iris Choi, Floodgate
Thanks to them all for participating, and of course you, our dear Equity listeners, for a blockbuster year for the podcast.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Monday: Billion-dollar deals, JetBrain’s epic profitability and our favorite new VC rounds
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 to 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 billion.
- RealPage is selling to private equity for $9.6 billion.
- Zoom is under fresh scrutiny here in the US.
- Bolt 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 us thinking about the future.
- And WorkWhile wants to help hourly workers and employers get along better.
Closing, here’s the Owen Thomas piece that I mentioned at the very end of the show.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Dive: Edtech’s 2020 wakeup call
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week, we’re doing a first-ever for the show and taking a deep dive into one specific sector: Edtech.
Natasha Mascarenhas has covered education technology since Stanford first closed down classes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In the wake of the historic shuttering of much of the United States’ traditional institutions of education, the sector has formed new unicorns, attracted record-breaking venture capital totals, and most of all, enjoyed time in a long-overdue spotlight.
For this Equity Dive, we zero into one part of that conversation: Edtech’s impact on higher education. We brought together Udacity co-founder and Kitty Hawk CEO Sebastian Thrun, Eschaton founder and college drop-out Ian Dilick, and Cowboy Ventures investor Jomayra Herrera to answer our biggest questions.
Here’s what we got into:
- How the state of remote school is leading to gap years among students
- A framework for how to think of higher education’s main three products (including which is most defensible over time)
- What learnings we can take from this COVID-19 experiment on remote schooling to apply to the future
- Why ed-tech is flocking to the notion of life-long learning
- And the reality of who self-paced learning serves — and who it leaves out
And much, much more. If you celebrate, thank you for spending part of your Thanksgiving with the Equity crew. We’re so thankful to have this platform and audience, and it means a ton that y’all tune in each week.
Finally, if you liked this format and want to see more, feel free to tweet us your thoughts or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Talk soon!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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All IPOs should be paid for in Robux
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This is an all-time first for the show, it’s an Equity Leftovers. Which means that we’re not focusing on a single topic like we would in an Equity Shot. This is just, well, more Equity.
Danny and I and Chris got together to chat about a few things that we could not leave out:
- Our piece looking at which venture capital firms are expected to make the most bank from the recent IPO deluge.
- Roblox’s IPO filing, and our take on its impending debut.
- All things Wish IPO, including what’s up with its revenue costs, and the broader ecommerce market.
- DoorDash’s epic financials, and how COVID helped propel the food delivery giant into the business hall of fame.
- The exit of one of Robinhood’s co-CEOs from the role.
- The HuffPo-Buzzfeed tie-up. And what is up with media companies in general.
And with this, our fourth episode in six days, we shall pause until Monday. Hugs from the Equity crew.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Shot: Airbnb’s IPO is finally here
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Today we have an Equity Shot for you about Airbnb’s S-1 filing, as it looks to go public before the year is out.
- First we get into Airbnb’s macro performance, which shows a stable-picture historical revenue growth. There are a ton of numbers to get to so get ready for a quick dive into net revenue, gross margins and losses.
- Then we discuss the dramatic drop in bookings, the promising comeback and if short-term travel is Airbnb’s future.
- There’s a weird quarter of profitability that you should all know about, and a heads-up on what to look for in Q4 numbers.
- Finally, we talk about the bullish and bearish case on Airbnb, which poetically filed the same day that Moderna announced a promising vaccine trial.
All that, and our trusty other host Danny Crichton was busy filing a post about the winners and losers of the Airbnb IPO. Ownership, you quiet, billionaire beast. There’s more coming from TechCrunch on the company’s IPO, and from the Equity crew on everything else we ferret out on Thursday. Stay tuned!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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