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Equity Monday: The TikTok mess, and a grip of neat European VC activity

Published September 21, 2020

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.

What a busy morning. We had to cover TikTok . We had to talk VC rounds. So, this is what we got up to:

U.S. tech stocks are poised to sell off further this morning.
The Oracle-TikTok-Walmart-ByteDance deal is either coming into focus, or a period of even less clarity. It’s hard to tell.
Nikola founder Trevor Milton is leaving the board of his own company in the wake of fraud allegations. Shares of the company are sharply lower in pre-market trading.
Turning to TikTok, this primer represents the best over-the-weekend roundup that we could find. But, of course, things are still breaking as we come to print.
Since recording, Oracle has said that “upon creation of TikTok Global, Oracle/Walmart will make their investment and the TikTok Global shares will be distributed to their owners, Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global.” And, President Trump said this morning that China has to give up control of TikTok or the deal is off. ByteDance has said that it will retain control. You figure that out.
But there was some good stuff to chat about. Including the super-neat Mobile Premier League round worth $90 million, growth news from EU-based Babbel, a new London-based seed fund that got raised and a Swedish health tech Series B.
As you guessed from today’s title, it was fun to see such a concentration of EU VC activity.
Finally, will the Nikola mess discourage more SPACs from taking companies public? If the rest of the stock market wasn’t selling off, we would have said “no.” But today? Is the answer “maybe”?

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.

Schools are closing their doors, but Opendoor isn’t

Published September 17, 2020

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 Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and myself hosted a live taping at Disrupt for a digital reception. It was good fun, though of course we’re looking forward to bringing the live show back to the conference next year, vaccine allowing.

Thankfully we had Chris Gates behind the scenes tweaking the dials, Alexandra Ames fitting us into the program and some folks to watch live.

What did we talk about? All of this (and some very, very bad jokes):

The Great American SPAC-Off: As both Opendoor and Desktop Metal approach the public markets on the wings of SPACs, we ask why. And why we have to keep talking about SPACs, which we do not want to do.
But the public markets are hot and active, with companies like JFrog and Snowflake going public to great effect. JFrog had a great IPO. Snowflake had an insane IPO.
But there was a lot of action from the private markets as well, including Airtable raising $185 million, ApplyBoard raised a $55 million extension and Tonal raised $110 million, because connected fitness is hotter than SaaS at the moment.
We also riffed on Natasha’s venture trends’ piece, digging into how to get to conviction in a remote-only world. As it turns out, we have notes on video games.
And there were two new funds, including one from the Chainsmokers (hot, fun, great) and another from Greylock (traditional, Victorian and huge). In more serious commentary, the Greylock raise continues the mega-fund era.

And then we tried to play a game that may or may not make it into the final cut. Either way, it was great to have Equity back at Disrupt. More to come. Hugs from us!

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.

Warren Buffett invests in an unprofitable business

Published September 10, 2020

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, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself chattering, and Chris Gates behind the scenes tweaking the dials as always. This week was a real team effort as we are heading into the maw of Disrupt — more here, see you there — but there was a lot of news all the same.

So, here’s what we got to:

AngelList is doubling down on rolling funds, driving that SaaS revenue into the firm that is also investing in the rolling funds. So that’s neat. (Really!)
Edtech stayed hot this week with Byju’s raising $500 million from Silver Lake. Founded back in 2011, Byju’s is the highest-valued edtech company that we can think of, now worth $10.8 billion.
And speaking of Silver Lake, the group just poured $1 billion into a part of the Reliance empire, this time Reliance Retail. And we talked about JioMart, which is taking on both Flipkart and Amazon in the country.
Next there were two companies with names that start with “S” that raised $100 million in the last week, namely Snyk — more here — and Sprinklr — more here.
Sticking to our “S” theme, Slack’s earnings were incredibly interesting. The company’s quarter didn’t get plaudits from investors, and it did note some negative COVID impacts that could impact startups as well.
And, one more S-company to get through: Snowflake. We were all a-twitter about the company’s new valuation range and the fact that fucking Berkshire Hathaway is going to invest in it. That’s wild! What a thing!
Finally on the IPO front, we did a quick Palantir update. Danny has all the latest here.

We wrapped with whatever this is, which was at least good for a laugh. We are back next week at Disrupt, so see you all there!

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.

A faster, easier, cheaper way of going public

Published August 27, 2020

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 the fourth episode of the week, pushing our production calendar to the test. Happily, we’ve managed to hold it together amidst the news deluge that the last few days have brought. It was a good week for our scheduling change, with the main episode of the show coming to you on Thursday afternoon versus Friday morning.

Change is good.

But unchanging this time around was our hosting lineup, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself yammering with Chris Gates on the mix. Here’s what we got into:

The CEO of TikTok is out, bids are swirling and who will wind up owning a piece of all of TikTok’s global operations is not clear. Walmart is in the mix, apparently, which feels very 2020.
The New York Stock Exchange has gotten approval from the SEC for a new type of direct listing, one in which the company going public can sell a bloc of shares during the normal price discovery process. This means that all the banker-faff of setting a price and roadshowing to various investor groups could be going the way of the buffalo.
About time, maybe? That was our take after reading this Bill Gurley note and the latest SEC news.
But while the direct listing world is getting more interesting, the SPAC world is taking flight. Desktop Metal is going public via a SPAC which is all sorts of fascinating. A younger, Boston-based unicorn going public in this manner is eye catching!
And then two funding rounds, the first from Finix, which can’t stop adding to its Series B. And Mural, which raised the largest Series B we can recall.

And with that, we’re all going to bed. We’re tired. No more news, thanks!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Equity Shot: Our favorite startups from YC Demo Day

Published August 26, 2020

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Yep, it’s another Equity Shot. We’re back. And then we’re going to be back on Friday. Because we can’t stop talking about the biggest news week in the world of startups and venture capital in some time.

Before we start, shout-out to the NBA for the growing, wildcat strike to protest racist police violence in America.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming. This time ’round Natasha and your humble servant were joined by Lucas Matney, a member of the TechCrunch reporting team and a first-timer on Equity. Where’s he been all this time? Covering all sorts of things, including VR startups for the publication. He was also a big part of our coverage of both days of YC’s Demo Days, making him a perfect fit for this episode.

Danny was given a break to sit at home, play board games and iron his favorite sweatshirt. He’s back Friday morning.

In case you’ve missed the words, here’s what we wrote this week on the subject:

Those entries should be pretty exhaustive, so dig into them when you can.

And make sure to read Natasha’s great piece on a super-hot startup from the batch, which comes up in the show. Peep that we are back on YouTube and we’ll be right back. Stay cool!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Equity Monday: A good time for ambitious startups to take on Big Tech

Published August 17, 2020

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.

This morning we had a bit of a detour, wandering into the world of Big Tech to wonder what is going on with those megacorps. Too big for their own good, or too big to be good, here’s what’s up with the incumbents:

Germany is taking on Amazon at the very same time that Canada is taking on Amazon, meaning that the Seattle giant is taking shots from two key markets at the same time.
Google is having a war of words with Australia, after a ruling in the country didn’t go its way.
Walled gardens are seeing their walls come under heavy fire, which means that Apple and Google are fighting both sides of their marketplaces (producers, consumers) at once at the moment, which isn’t great.
And Microsoft might buy TikTok.

All told it seems that the biggest tech companies are busy defending their market position instead of re-earning it with great products. A good time for startups? I think so. When incumbents are busy fighting with governments, themselves and each other, it’s a great time to show up, steal a march and build neat products that take away their momentum.

On the funding front, we peeked at the neat Help Lightning round, the Agiloft investment and the Vertafore exit.

And then there was this report concerning Asana, which is growing nicely for a company of its size and could actually be cheap at its current price. Anyway, we want the company to get on with getting public so that we can read its S-1 filing. Give it to us!

All that and we had some fun, chat soon!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Equity Monday: The TikTok saga rolls on as earnings season starts to wrap

Published August 10, 2020

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.

This morning was a bit of a grab-bag of news, but of course we had to start off with the biggest story from the past few weeks:

It’s TikTok around the clock: News broke recently that Twitter could be interested in TikTok after Apple came and somewhat went as a possible suitor. What matters is that Microsoft is not a full-lock on TikTok’s exit. No word lately on whether the Trump administration’s decision to try to extort a chunk of the sale price will go through. (It won’t.)
TikTok may sue the Trump administration as early as this week over its possible forced sale.
Do startup culture, venture capital and mental health mix well?
Amazon is talking about turning some malls into fulfillment centers; TechCrunch has more.
The huge wealth of major tech companies is only growing, meaning that a rising share of the public market run is based on a handful of big-tech results.
Flipkart is building an accelerator.
Expert System has raised $29.4 million, while Palmetto has raised $29 million, and Silverfort put together a $30 million round. How’s that for three rounds of the same size?

All that and earnings season is largely behind us, leaving tech companies generally unscathed. So, the good times will persist for a while yet. Have a great week!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

The rules of VC are being broken

Published August 7, 2020

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

As ever, I was joined by TechCrunch managing editor Danny Crichton and our early-stage venture capital reporter Natasha Mascarenhas. We had Chris on the dials and a pile of news to get through, so we were pretty hyped heading into the show.

But before we could truly get started we had to discuss Cincinnati, and TikTok. Pleasantries and extortion out of the way, we got busy:

E-commerce and fintech stay hot as Square reported big earnings, Shopify and Etsy do well, and more. We tied this to recent VC results in the fintech space, which saw a record number of $100 million rounds in Q2. There were some signs of weakness elsewhere, but the general state of things in tech is surprisingly hot, given the pandemic and recession.
Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia has a new seed fund that he built in collaboration with AngelList.
D2C women’s-health startup Stix raised a $1.3 million seed round.
Quantum-computing startup Rigetti raised a $79 million Series C.
Rippling raised $145 million at an eye-popping $1.35 billion valuation; the company’s last value, set a year ago, was $270 million.
AgentSync put together a $4.4 million seed round to help bring APIs to insurtech.
Turning away from funding to some neat product news, India-based Statiq is building a bootstrapped EV-charging network.
And as we wrapped, the Byju’s-WhiteHat Jr. deal was neat, JIO is soaking up a huge amount of Indian VC, and Natasha’s latest piece on learning pods had us arguing about what things are worth.

It was another fun week! As always we appreciate you sticking with and supporting the show!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Equity Monday: SAP, Qualtrics and oh boy are we excited

Published July 27, 2020

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.

Here’s what we talked about today:

Headlines: SAP is spinning out part of Qualtrics, Dave leaked customer data and Asian markets were mixed while the U.S. shared opened green. Cryptos and gold are up at the same time, marking the moment as a melt-up.
The Qualtrics news was the loudest note from the weekend’s jam, coming a few years after SAP bought the Utah-based tech giant. SAP will retain a majority stake even after the debut, but the plan should give Qualtrics more freedom, and SAP a better valuation for the piece of the smaller company that it retains. That’s if the spin-out goes well, of course.
Dave’s leak looks bad, and will test what happens to more nascent fintech properties when they endure this sort of breach.
Looking ahead, this is a huge earnings week. We’ll see results from Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and others.
And, finally, rounds from StashAway, cargo.one and Blueheart.

Closing, we’re in exciting territory on the public markets given that high share prices are giving big companies more ammunition than ever. Let’s see what they can get done with it before the window closes.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

The 3% gap in no-code

Published July 24, 2020

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Up top the crew this week was the regular contingent: Danny Crichton, Natasha Mascarenhas and myself. As a tiny programming note, we’re going back to posting some videos on YouTube in a few weeks, so make sure to peep the TechCrunch channel if that’s your jam.

And we did a special episode on the SPAC boom, if you are into financial arcana. For more on SPACs –> here.

The Equity crew tried something new this week, namely centering our main conversation around a theme that we’re keeping tabs on: The resilience of tech during the current pandemic-led recession.

Starting with the recent economic news, it’s surprising that tech’s layoffs have slowed to a crawl. And, as we’ve recently seen, there’s still plenty of money flowing into startups, even if there are some dips present on a year-over-year basis. Why are things still pretty good for startups, and pretty good for major tech companies? We have a few ideas, like the acceleration of the digital transformation (more here, and here), and software eating the world. The latter concept, of course, is related to the former.

After that it was time to go through some neat funding rounds from the week, including:

Dumpling raising $6.5 million to help individual shoppers build their own Instacart.
Kibbo’s shot at making the #vanlife happen for more folks, something that we think is a good fit for the pandemic and the mobile professional.
Sora’s $5.3 million raise for no-code HR connective tissue, something that I was rather bullish on but drew some chat about no-code itself, and if the trend is more hype than substance.

All that and I have a newsletter launching this weekend that if you read, you will automatically be 100% cooler. It’s called the TechCrunch Exchange, and you can snag it for free here.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.