Equity podcast
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Give us your seed round and we will send back double
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week was full of news of all sorts, but as we recorded, both Danny and Natasha “not Tash” Mascarenhas were still locked out of their Twitter accounts after a proletariat revolution on the social platform saw the ruling Blue Checkmark Class forced into silence. That’s not really what happened, but it sounds better than what actually went down at Big Social.
Anyway, Twitter accounts or not, the three of us gathered to parse through a wave of news:
- The new TechCrunch List that Danny spent a very long time compiling has arrived! It’s live! You can find it here. It is good.
- And, if you want to know which VCs were even more fêted by founders, head here. (If you are irked that you did not make either list, please email Danny, not the show!)
- Moving on, Google is putting billions into Reliance Jio after every other company in the world did the same. Google is buying a bit less of the Indian telecom than the search giant, but between the two of them it’s been more than $10 billion in dealmaking. Perhaps Reliance Jio is done raising money? At last?
- Udemy is hunting up more capital at a higher valuation, reports say, providing Natasha with the perfect moment to let us know what is going with edtech.
- Turning to funding rounds, I was hyped about the Macro round that TechCrunch covered this week, Danny wanted to chat about The Browser Company’s similarly sized $5 million round and Natasha talked us through LiteBoxer’s combined $6 million in new capital.
- Closing, we talked about IPOs for a hot second. The IPO window is open, and now that nCino and GoHealth have gone public, we want to know who is next.
It was a lovely time and there is a bit of show news. Namely that Equity is coming back to YouTube either this week or the next. So if you want to see us talk, soon you will be able to! Again!
Oh, and follow the show on Twitter. If you can, that is.
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.
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It’s not just about e-mail, stupid
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Your humble Equity team is pretty tired but in good spirits, as there was a lot to talk about this week. But, first, three things to start us off:
- First: Read this piece from TechCrunch’s Megan Rose Dickey about Juneteenth and tech companies. This podcast is going out on Juneteenth, so before you hit play, please take a minute to learn more about the day and its significance.
- Second: Danny and Arman from the TechCrunch team have finally launched TechCrunch List, a huge effort to determine which investors are really willing to write early checks. You can find out more here.
- Third: Equity is now on Twitter. Follow us here or understand that you are not cool.
All that said, here’s what we talked about on the show:
- Epic Games is looking to raise a huge stack of cash (Bloomberg, VentureBeat) at a new, higher valuation. We were curious about how its lower-cut store could help it gain inroads with developers big and small. That part of the chat, the take-rate of the Fortnite parent company on the work of others was very cogent to the other main topic of the day:
- Apple vs. DHH. So Hey launched this week, and the new spin on email quickly overshadowed its product launch by getting into a spat with Apple about whether it needs to add the ability to sign up for the paid service on iOS, thus giving Apple a cut of its revenue. DHH and crew do not agree. Apple is under fire for anti-competitive practices at home and abroad — of varying intensity, and from different sources — making this all the more spicy.
- Upgrade raises $40 million for its credit-focused neobank.
- Degreed raises $32 million for its upskilling platform.
- And, at the end, our take on the current health of the startup market. There have been a sheaf of reports lately about what is going on in startup land. We gave our take.
And that’s that. Have a lovely weekend and catch up on some sleep.
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Clubhouse proves that time is a flat circle
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
First, a big thanks to everyone who took part in the Equity survey, we really appreciated your notes and thoughts. The crew is chewing over what you said, and we’ll roll up the best feedback into show tweaks in the future.
Today, though, we’ve got Danny and Natasha and Chris and Alex back again for our regular news dive. This week we had to leave the Vroom IPO filing, Danny’s group project on The Future of Work and a handwashing startup (?) from Natasha to get to the very biggest stories:
- Brex’s $150 million raise: Natasha covered the latest huge round from corporate charge-card behemoth Brex. The party’s over in Silicon Valley for a little while, so Brex is turning down your favorite startup’s credit limit while it stacks cash for the downturn.
- Spruce raises a $29 million Series B: Led by Scale Venture Partners, Spruce is taking on the world of real estate transactions with digital tooling and an API. As Danny notes, it’s a huge market and one that could find a boost from the pandemic.
- MasterClass raises $100 million: Somewhere between education and entertainment, MasterClass has found its niche. The startup’s $180 yearly subscription product appears to be performing well, given that the company just stacked nine-figures into its checking account. What’s it worth? The company would only tell Natasha that it was more than $800 million.
- Clubhouse does, well, you know. Clubhouse happened. So we talked about it.
- SoftBank dropped its earnings lately, which gave Danny time to break out his pocket calculator and figure out how much money it spent daily, and Alex time to parse the comedy that its slideshow entailed. Here’s our favorites from the mix. (Source materials are here.)
And at the end, we got Danny to explain what the flying frack is going on over at Luckin. It’s somewhere between tragedy and farce, we reckon. That’s it for today, more Tuesday after the holiday!
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Equity Monday: Two early-stage rounds, grocery delivery and SoftBank’s bill
Good morning friends, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week.
Before we jump into today’s show, don’t forget that the long-form Equity that started in the unicorn era and continue in today’s changed world still drops on Friday. We had a blast last week, so make sure to catch up.
That said, there was a lot to go over this morning, so let’s get into what we had to discuss:
- Global spend patterns are changing, helping some startups and slowing others. But notable in the mix is how well grocery delivery is doing; if the change will be enough to turn uncertain bets like Instacart into sure things, however, is not yet clear.
- Earnings are finally nearly here. We’ll see the big names start to disclose results next week. In the next three weeks or so we’ll hear from Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix and Spotify. The results will help us understand how the market is doing; and, by proxy, how startups are performing.
- Quoting from our script this morning: “Would it be great to know how startups are doing without resorting to our chronic use of public proxies? Yes. Any startup who wants to kick off that trend can send in reports of how their Q1 went and what they expect in Q2 and the other two quarters of 2020 to EquityPod@TechCrunch.com. That’s probably the easiest way to get your company on the show, so, please do write in with specifics.”
- We took a look at the latest rounds from Kargo and Pangea.app.
- Finally, SoftBank’s huge Vision Fund bill is coming due. I almost can’t believe these numbers. What a mess.
And that’s the show for today. Stay safe, and we’ll be back Friday morning to cap off whatever this week winds up becoming.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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So many fintech eggs in so many baskets
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
The whole crew was present this week: Natasha, Danny and Alex, along with our intrepid producer Chris. And like the last few episodes it was good to have everyone around as there was so very much to get through. Even better there was a lot of good, non-COVID-19 news to cover. Yes, there were bad tidings and some COVID-19 material as well, but, hey, not everything can be fun.
We started with a look at Clearbanc and its runway extension not-a-loan program, which may help startups survive that are running low on cash. Natasha covered it for TechCrunch. Most of us know about Clearbanc’s revenue-based financing model; this is a twist. But it’s good to see companies work to adapt their products to help other startups survive.
Next we chatted about a few rounds that Danny covered, namely Sila’s $7.7 million investment to help build technology that could take on the venerable and vulnerable ACH, and Cadence’s $4 million raise to help with securitization. Even better, per Danny, they are both blockchain-using companies. And they are useful! Blockchain, while you were looking elsewhere, has done some cool stuff at last.
Sticking to our fintech theme — the show wound up being super fintech-heavy, which was an accident — we turned to SoFi’s huge $1.2 billion deal to buy Galileo, a Utah-based payments company that helps power a big piece of UK-based fintech. SoFi is going into the B2B fintech world after first attacking the B2C realm; we reckon that if it can pull the move off, other financial technology companies might follow suit.
Tidying up all the fintech stories is this round up from Natasha and Alex, working to figure out who in fintech is doing poorly, who’s hiding for now, and who is crushing it in the new economic reality.
Next we touched on layoffs generally, layoffs at Toast, AngelList, and not LinkedIn — for now. Per their plans to not have plans to have layoffs. You figure that out.
And then at the end, we capped with good news from Thrive and Index. We didn’t get to Shippo, sadly. Next time!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Monday.com surpassed $130M ARR before the remote-work boom
As efforts to flatten the spread of COVID-19 pushes employees from their offices, remote work is undergoing a surge in popularity.
Well-known remote-work-friendly companies like Zoom have seen a rise in usage, while Slack has already reported that it is successfully converting new users into paying customers, which is pushing up its growth rate.
The pandemic is creating economic and social upheaval, but for a specific cohort of software companies that help distributed teams work together, it’s proven useful in business terms. But even before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, execs from a standout project management company swung by TechCrunch HQ to chat with the Equity crew about their business and growth: Monday.com.
What does an interview with Monday.com’s Eran Zinman (co-founder and CTO) and Roy Mann (CEO) have to do with COVID-19? Well, if remote-productivity-friendly services Slack and Zoom are seeing usage spikes amidst the changes, Monday.com is likely benefiting from similar gains. And during our chat with the company’s brass, the pair told TechCrunch that their company had crossed the $130 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) mark by mid-February. Add in a COVID-19 usage boost and perhaps Monday.com (which doesn’t have a free tier) is seeing its growth accelerate.
Previously, Monday.com announced that it had reached the $120 million ARR mark, and TechCrunch had inducted it into the $100 million ARR club earlier this year.
Revenue expansion was not our only topic. We also chatted with the pair of execs about customer acquisition costs and how to a run a SaaS business without terrifying burn. The Monday.com crew had more news up their sleeve, like when they expect the unicorn to become cash-flow positive.
We’ve excised a larger-than-usual chunk of the interview for sharing, as there’s a lot to take in:
After the jump, we dig a bit deeper into the obvious IPO candidate
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Raising in a recession
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week’s episode was a testament to making do, as we’ve had to cancel some trips, juggle a few guests, and get up and running as a podcast that have guests dial in without losing our stride. So, this week Danny and Natasha and Alex were joined by Unshackled VC’s Manan Mehta.
And it went pretty ok, aside from a hiccup or two, expect Equity to still feature guests as often as it makes sense, even if we’re currently locked out of our own studio. Anyhoo, a combo of local recording, remote video setups, and Chris handling the dials meant that we were able to talk over all the good stuff:
- Hashicorp raises $175 million at a $5 billion valuation. It was nice to see a round so large take place when the rest of the sky in tech was busy falling onto itself.
- Deepgram raises $12 million. Alex covered this company’s funding, winding up pretty excited about the technology itself.
- Edtech startup Teachable exits after good GMV growth. Nice exit for this New York City-based startup, and we chatted about the early-stage edtech market, which was good fun.
- VC firms offer group therapy for founders due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It marks another data point in the small, but growing, cohort of venture capitalists thinking about mental health services beyond an investment opportunity.
- Remote Year, which helps you work while traveling the world, lays off 50% of staff. It’s one of an incoming flurry of layoffs we’re expecting to see from travel-related startups.
- Danny advised founders to announce their rounds now to reassure their employees and customers that they are ready for the coming recession
- And finally, what’s up with Airbnb’s direct listing timing? We tried to sort that out before we ran short of time.
All told there were some laughs, and we spent a good few minutes before mentioning COVID-19. It was good fun to have the crew on for a classic Equity episode, and a big thanks to Manan for coming aboard under less-than-optimal circumstances.
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Raising money in a bear market, and what happened with Sequoia and Finix?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Today was something a bit special. We’d originally hoped to have this episode in person, as a group, but the world isn’t flying as much right now so we had to make do. Regardless, please say hello and welcome Natasha Mascarenhas to the Equity crew.
Natasha has worked for the Boston Globe, the SF Chronicle and, most recently, covering venture capital for Crunchbase News. TechCrunch is lucky to have her, and the Equity team is stoked that she’s coming aboard our hosting team. When she’s not podcasting, she will be reporting on early-stage startups and venture capital trends for TechCrunch and Extra Crunch.
Don’t worry, Danny and Alex aren’t going anywhere. Equity is now, happily, back to its original three-part hosting crew. This means we can do a better job week in, and week out.
Alright! Enough of all that, let’s talk news. Here’s what we went over today:
- The 11-year bull market is over, and Uber and Lyft suffered from the fallout.
- What might be ahead for startups as the public markets fall apart.
- New funds from NEA and Felicis.
- How to raise money in the current remote-work climate.
- The Sequoia-Finix dustup.
Equity has been busy lately. We put together a huge interview with Jason Lemkin, and held a live chat this week. We’re tinkering with new things as we try to do more, and better for you all. Chat you all Monday morning!
Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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Why is One Medical worth more than Casper?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week was something fun. First, we were back as a group in the San Francisco studio, which is always fun. Even better, we had NEA’s Rick Yang on hand to chat with Danny and Alex about the week. Yang, as old-school Equity listeners will recall, was on the show back in 2017. (Equity turns three soon, which is somewhat amazing.)
All that aside, let’s talk about what we talked about. As always, we kicked off with three rounds:
- Sendoso raises $40 million on the back of 330% revenue growth
- Finix raises $35 million for its payments infra product with Sequoia as its new lead
- Elodie Games picks up $5 million for cross-platform, in-house games (this sounds super cool)
After that we chugged through a mountain of news. First up, the confirmation of a story that we mentioned on the show before, namely the existence of a new venture fund (angel pool, perhaps) from the CEO of email startup Superhuman Rahul Vora and Eventjoy founder Todd Goldberg. The $7 million vehicle is going to cut pre-seed sized checks ($75,000 to $200,000), which should make it a popular pit stop for pre-revenue companies.
What next? Well, Casper of course. The company’s IPO pricing and debut was this week, something that we’ve had something to say about. That, and the latest from One Medical’s strong post-IPO performance, and the news that Asana has filed privately to go public in a direct listing.
That last item was of particular interest, as the company hasn’t raised as much cash as other companies that we’ve seen direct list, the Spotifys and Slacks of the world. So has it raised capital that we haven’t heard about, or has it simply not spent the capital it has raised? If it had spent the money, then wouldn’t it want to raise some like with a traditional IPO? Mysteries! Riddles that will be solved when we get to see the damn filing.
Oh, and Spotify continues to pour money into podcasting. Which everyone ’round the table thought was pretty smart.
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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How to blow through capital at an incredible rate
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
It was yet another jam-packed week full of big news, IPO happenings and venture activity. As always, we’ve done our best to deliver the gist on what’s been going on. We had Alex Wilhelm and Danny Crichton on hand to handle it all, which went medium-good. In other Equity news, we’re back with guests over the next few weeks, so if you miss us having a venture capitalist along for the ride, fear not, their return is just around the corner.
Up top this week was Jon Shieber’s report that Kleiner Perkins has rapidly deployed its most recent fund, a $600 million vehicle. While the news felt surprising, digging back through our archives we were reminded that the firm had indicated it might put its capital to work quickly. Still, as Danny pointed out, it’s rare that venture capitalists have to go out raising from LPs on an annual basis.
After that, we turned to some funding rounds that held our attention, including the Free Agency round that is working to bring talent management to the technology industry similar to the sports and entertainment worlds.
The concept makes some sense, as compensation packages for top talent in the industry can extend into the seven-figures (Free Agency takes a 5-10% cut of an employee’s income using the increasingly popular income-share agreements). Also, this round felt a bit like a reminder that the labor market is tight at the moment.
We then moved on to Josh Constine’s story about “Ring for enterprise” startup Verkada, which raised a massive $80 million round at a $1.6 billion valuation. That’s eye-popping, since the extremely small dilution implied with those numbers (5%) is very rare in the venture world.
After that we turned to a few rounds that Alex has had his eye on, namely the somewhat-recent Insurify round, the pretty-recent Gabi round and the most-recent Policygenius. All told, they sum to $150 million, which made us ask the question, why are venture capitalists so into insurance marketplace startups?
Finally, we touched on the latest from the intra-SoftBank delivery war between DoorDash and Uber Eats, including who is impacted, and what it means for future consolidation in the on-demand world. Or more precisely, why hasn’t there been more?
Finally, don’t forget that IPO season is upon us. Are you caught up?
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
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