Equity podcast
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Th O’s r ptinal, th dllrs r mndtry
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
The full Equity crew was on hand to debate the current venture capital market, curious about how risk-on, or risk-off things really are today. Danny, Natasha and I framed the conversation around a number of news items from the week, including:
- Wrkfrce has launched, and we wanted to chat more about the future of niche media, bringing The Juggernaut’s own recent round and the Quartz shakeup into the conversation.
- And on the media front — always a risky venture capital investing domain — Spotify has snapped up another podcasting company, this time paying $235 for Megaphone. Our take? A string of small exits probably won’t encourage VCs to take on more risk in the space (Hunter Walk said the same thing here.)
- Turning to risk more generally, I asked Natasha to weigh in on the earlier stages of the venture market, and Danny on its later tranches. There’s still lots of money, but it appears more focused on chasing winners than bolstering or supporting less-obvious startups.
- That market is not slowing a risk-on move toward more venture capital players, as the Spearhead news showed a new focus for the firm to invest in emerging fund managers.
- And there’s still plenty of risk tolerance in remote-work solutions like Hopin, which just raised $125 million at a $2+ billion valuation. We’re torn on the round, but Danny likes it and he’s a former VC.
- And we wrapped with a chat about upcoming IPOs, and the recent SoftBank results. If DoorDash, Airbnb and others are going to go this year, they need to go soon. So far, no dice.
It was a busy week, despite the month. Expect more of the same next week.
Finally, don’t forget that our own Chris Gates is cutting Equity videos out of every episode that you can find over on YouTube. He does a great job and it’s great to be on video, as well as audio platforms.
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 Monday: Vaccine news scrambles the stock market, shakes up startups
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 Friday’s episode that we wound up titling “Fortnite is actually a SaaS company.”
It makes sense in context, I promise.
Anyway, here’s what’s on today’s show:
- Joe Biden was elected president and the stock market is not mad about divided government.
- Positive vaccine news sent many stocks sharply higher this morning, but not all. Some pandemic-favored tech companies instantly dropped double-digit percentage points of value.
- Esign raised $151 million, showing strength in the Chinese startup market, and the e-signature space.
- And this neat Series B for Cellwize caught our attention this morning.
- Finally, a warning. The stuff that is changing lately may begin to change a bit less. We’ve lived in the pandemic economy long enough now that it’s hard to recall what life was like before. But, we’d best start remembering, as there’s a lot that is going to change in the next few quarters.
This has been a wild day to start the week, but with good news.
I suppose a vaccine was always going to eventually make it to this step, but, that said, the United States is seeing record COVID-19 cases today. So mask up and let’s get as many of us across the line as we can.
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: Boo! It’s the Halloween earnings special!
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
As promised, the whole gang is back, this time to chew on the biggest, baddest, worstest, and most troubling earnings reports from the current cycle. This week saw Amazon and Alphabet and Microsoft and Apple and Facebook report, along with a host of smaller companies.
Spoiler alert: there were more tricks than treats.
- Danny, Natasha and Alex wanted to get to the bottom of the big tech results, asking what really mattered from each of them?
- Then it was time to dig into themes. We saw plan price increases coming from Netflix and Spotify, advertising getting a boo-st from politics and 2020’s overall meltdown, and boo-ming billions of consumer interest in…desktops.
- After that, a dive into the results of smaller SaaS and cloud companies, picking out trends that might help us see around the corner a bit; is the tech boom slowing, or is corporate growth merely failing to keep up with inflated investor expectations?
- This week felt like a shudder ran through the spine of our economy. The earnings paint a neutral picture, which isn’t exactly an exhale to rejoice over. The coronavirus continues to be a threat that poses a risk to public businesses. For startups, that could mean a less frothy exit market nad lower valuations. And for the public, it means that the uncertain is still ahead of us. So wear a mask.
And with that, the show is back Monday morning. Have a good weekend, everyone.
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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Tech optimism…in this economy?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
A few notes before we get into this. One, we have a bonus episode coming this Saturday focused on this week’s earnings reports. And, second, we did not record video this week. So, if you like watching the show on YouTube, this is not the week for that!
Right, here’s what Natasha, Danny and your humble servant got into this week:
- The huge COVID-related hit that public markets took this week, with tech getting hit extra hard.
- An antitrust brouhaha! As the Vista-Plaid deal (and others) gets a hard look, we wondered what it could all mean for startups a bit more suited for M&A than an IPO.
- Up next we dug into how founders are raising money before they even quit their jobs, a trend that Natasha is digging into.
- From there it was a Danny segment, riffing on his 2020s piece, and diving into where he sees the most ripe chances for startups to truly change the world. We just hope the capital follows the opportunities.
- Then it was time to talk accelerators, with Natasha detailing on the Indie Bio class, and my taking of the show through some recent Techstars companies.
- VCs raised too, with the three of us talking about The Engine and Impact America raising fresh new funds.
- And then we chatted about the Yuanfudao round, and a Series B that The Wanderlust Group just put together.
We capped off with the latest from r2c, and then got the hell off the mics. Catch you all Saturday, and then back to regular programming on Monday morning.
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 Monday: SAP’s warning, and IPO updates for both Airbnb and Databricks
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 Friday’s episode that includes some high-quality Quibi jokes, if I recall correctly.
This was a busy morning, with lots to talk about it. Here’s what we got into:
- Headlines this morning that caught our eye included falling global stock markets in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases; SAP torched tens of billions of market cap by missing earnings expectations and cutting its forecast; and Ant Group will raise a bajillion dollars in its impending IPO.
- In unicorn news, Databricks is prepping an IPO that we already know a lot about. And Airbnb’s shares are splitting ahead of its own IPO, a deal that we are expecting any day now.
- The PrimaryBid round was super cool, with TechCrunch covering the $50 million deal. I spoke with the company’s CEO last week about the deal, sharing some of those notes on the show. And VSPN raised nearly $100 million in an esports round that was more than cool.
- On the SAP front, here’s the question: Is the earnings miss and forecast miss a one-off, or something that a number of tech companies are going to suffer from? If the former, it’s not that big of a deal. If the latter, SAP could be the harbinger of a reset in tech valuations.
Shout-out to Lewis Hamilton and that G2 series. OK, chat Thursday!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT 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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Quibi’s shortform life
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Myself, along with Danny and Natasha had a lot to get through, and more to say than expected. A big thanks to Chris for cutting the show down to size.
Now, what did we get to? Aside from a little of everything, we ran through:
- The fall of Quibi, and who lost money in the mix. TechCrunch has a bit more on the video service’s downfall here.
- The Netflix quarter, and why its shares lost ground after its report. The Quibi-Netflix stories show that it’s not smooth sailing in the market for online video.
- If Netflix stumbled, Snap soared with stronger-than-expected growth. The company still loses lots of money, but it’s getting closer to reasonable results, and has lots of cash.
- Then we turned to a few media startups that raised, including $4 million for Stir and $2.5 million for Quake. Quake the podcasting company, mind, not the excellent FPS.
- Next was a handful of housing rounds, including the very neat Abodu and the somewhat controversial RVshare, which split the three of us about whether or not it was going to work out.
- Then we had some great reporting from Natasha to parse through, including her piece on startup hacker houses, and her report on a new women-focused accelerator class.
Whew! It was a lot, but also very good fun. Look for clips on YouTube if you’d like, and we’ll chat you all next Monday.
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: The DoJ, Google and what the suit could mean for startups
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
It’s a big day in tech because the U.S. federal government is going after Google on anti-competitive grounds. Sure, the timing appears crassly political and the case is not picking up huge plaudits thus far for its air-tightness, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore it.
So Danny and I got on the horn to chat it up for about 10 minutes to fill you in. For reference, you can read the full filing here, in case you want to get your nails in. It’s not a complicated read. Get in there.
As a pair we dug into what stood out from the suit, what we think about the historical context and also noodled at the end about what the whole situation could mean for startups; it’s not all good news, but adding lots of competitive space to the market would be a net-good for upstart tech companies in the long-run.
And consumers. Competition is good.
You can read TechCrunch’s early coverage of the suit here, and our look at the market’s reaction here. Let’s go!
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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When was the last time you worked out your soul?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
The whole crew was back today, with Natasha and Danny and I gathered to parse over what was really a blast of news. Lots of startups are raising. Lots of VCs are raising. And some unicorns are shooting to go public. It’s a lot to get through, but we’re here to catch you up.
Here’s what we got into:
- A Media Roundup: The Juggernaut raised $2 million in a round that we found to be both cool and timely. The news of a media startup raising money was paired with rumors of an exit for email media darling Morning Brew for a price tag of up to $75 million. Undergirding each story was recent reporting concerning the revenue success that Axios is enjoying. It’s nice to report on some media news that isn’t fresh layoffs.
- A cluster of wellness startups raising capital: If you like to work out your mind and body, it was a good week of news for you. Calm is looking for new funds at a fresh, higher valuation. TechCrunch has coverage here. Coa did raise, adding $3 million to its coffers for mental health group classes. And Playbook put together $9.3 million for its fitness instructor platform.
- VCs raised lots: It’s a hot time for VCs themselves to raise money, with OpenView, Canaan, True Ventures, Lead Edge Capital, First Round and Khosla either closing rounds or announcing new fundraises.
- Also on the VC beat: Terri Burns was made an investing partner at GV.
- Finally, we got into the recent GetAround funding and turnaround story, which segued us into Airbnb’s own recovery. TechCrunch has more here.
And with that, we’re off until Monday morning. Chat soon, and stay safe.
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 Monday: Twilio buys Segment, and Airkit raises $28M for its low-code platform
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 Friday’s episode.
So, what was on our minds this morning?
- Headlines: The Twilio-Segment deal is real, happening and priced about where we expected. Big names in the ex-China internet want to make encryption worse. And, how the United States government would break up Google is becoming clearer by the week.
- On the Twilio-Segment deal, as TechCrunch and Forbes anticipated, the transaction came in around $3.2 billion, forming something of an API monster from their combined form. As we noted on the show, a lot of investors made a mint from the transaction.
- Airkit has raised $28 million while in stealth since 2017. What does it do? Per Forbes, it’s a “low-code platform” that wants to “improve customer engagement.” That’s notably similar to what Segment does.
- Flash Express raised $200 million, as the on-demand and delivery spaces stay hot.
- And Razorpay raised $100 million at a valuation of $1 billion, meaning that we have just witnessed the birth of yet another fintech unicorn.
- And, finally, warm public markets mean that the startup and VC game will stay afoot, even if we see a pre-election dip in IPOs.
We hope that you are well and warm and full of good spirits. Back soon!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT 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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Why isn’t Robinhood a verb yet?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s VC-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and your humble servant gathered to chat through a host of rounds and venture capital news for your enjoyment. As a programming note, I am off next week effectively, so look for Natasha to lead on Equity Monday and then both her and Danny to rock the Thursday show. I will miss everyone.
But onto the show itself, here’s what we got into:
- Zoom’s earliest investors are betting millions on a better Zoom for schools: Built on Natasha’s reporting, we took a look at a neat company that wants to make Zoom better for the educational environments where it had suddenly taken the center stage. Teachers need more.
- The first rule of BookClub? No boring book clubs. Another Natasha story this week, this time about a startup that we somewhat like but can’t decide how its market will be. Still, the bibliophiles in your life should read this piece and get hyped about rising access to authors.
- Robinhood raised $460 million more, extending its preceding $200 million Series G to a $660 million total investment. Chime also added $485 million at a new, $14.5 billion valuation. We dug into what’s up with the pair and why they are raising so much money.
- The short answer is hella growth, leading us to a question and this week’s headline: Why isn’t Robinhood a verb yet?
- Willow, the startup making the wearable breast pump, raises $55 million: Natasha talked us through some of the issues with the phrase femtech, before Danny explained to us the need for what Willow offers. Here’s to more tech being used to help more folks at more stages of life.
- Then we turned to VC media, namely our notes on a new venture capital game show, and, a16z launching a podcast network. We also worked what Casey Newton is up to into the same conversation.
Bon voyage for a week, please stay safe and don’t forget to register to vote.
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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