Equity

So, what happened in venture capital-land during Q2 2023? A lot, and not very much. We got PitchBook venture guru Kyle Stanford to come back on the podcast to riff with us on the good, the bad, and the late-stage.Here's what we got into:How did American venture perform in Q2 2023? Welcome to the new normal, and why that's actually bad news.How are Seed deals faring, and what about later-stage transactions?How bad is the slow pace of exits today, and what impact will they have on venture capital fundraising itself? More on the topic here.And, any green shoots popping up? Here's a rundown of what could be considered good news.You can read the underlying dataset we were riffing on here, and we are back on Friday with the news roundup! Chat soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interview

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!Stocks are largely down around the world following weak Chinese economic data for the second quarter. We’re also heading back into an earnings cycle, so get ready to hear from Tesla and Netflix this week, among other major names.In crypto-land, the XRP/Ripple partial victory drove a short-lived boomlet for many crypto tokens; XRP is the clear winner from last week.Twitter is cash-flow negative, per its CEO, but the company intends to double-down on paying individual tweeters for their high-view activities.While Twitter molts, Threads continues to grow like a weed. Speaking of Meta, the company is in trouble in Norway.On the startup front, Intel invested in Figure, which we think is quite neat, and Thunes is now nearly a unicorn

Here's the rundown from Mary Ann and Alex:A new Chinese AI model had us wondering who is really going to win the AI war and whether governments will play a role — perhaps not the role that they are expecting.A founder that Founders Fund funded is now funding other founders at Founders Fund: Yep.Sticking to the venture theme, is it possible for AI models in venture to actually create a less biased landscape for entrepreneurs? Connetic Ventures thinks so!Two bits of good news: Tech layoffs have dramatically slowed, and slowing inflation could herald the end of interest rate hikes, which could bolster tech valuations. Or at least cut some of the pressure.Finally, as Twitter does what it usually does when a rival service takes off, we asked ourselves how other social media services are doing. We are more familiar with some than others.As always, Equity will be back for you bright and early Monday morning. Talk soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT eve

This week we had a very special guest on the podcast: Matthew Lynley, one of the founding hosts of Equity and a former TechCruncher. Since his Equity days, Lynley went off and started his very own AI-focused publication called Supervised.We brought him back on the show to ask him questions in a format where we can all learn together. Here’s what we got into:From Transformers to GPT4: How attention became so critical inside of neural networks, and how transformers set the path for modern AI services.Recent acquisitions in the AI space, and what it means for the “LLM stack:” With Databricks buying MosaicML and Snowflake already busy with its own checkbook, a lot of folks are working to build out a full-stack LLM data extravaganza. We talked about what that means.Where startups sit in the current AI race: While it’s great to think about the majors, we also need to know what the startup angle is. The answer? It’s a little early to say, but what is clear is that startups are taking some big swings at the industry

Here’s the rundown from this morning:The global stock market is looking mixed, with the leading piece of financial news dealing with inflation data in the Chinese market.On the crypto side of things, there are no massive price movements in key tokens to examine. That said, the NFT market has been turbulent in the last few days due to incentive changes as a key marketplace.An FYI: We are back in earnings season, but there’s little to report on the tech side of things this week. Expect the pace to pick up next week.Ant has a new valuation thanks to a choice to offer share buybacks to existing backers. It’s still worth nearly $80 billion, just a lot less than it might have been valued at back in its 2020 IPO that got scuttled.People like Threads: The new social service from Meta has reached the 100 million sign-up mark rapidly. More on threads here on the TC Podcast.In Startup-Land: FrontRow is shutting down in another blow to Indian edtech, while Propel raised $2.7 million to connect African tech talent to glob

We're switching things up and bringing you two interviews this week, so let's niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest.Mary Ann took the lead this time, and she sat down (virtually) with Immad Akhund, the CEO and co-founder of Mercury. For those who are unfamiliar, the fintech made headlines earlier this year for how it stepped in to help fill the business banking void left in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse. Here's what the pair caught up on:Mercury's impressive growth in the months since SVB crashedLessons learned from Immad's angel investing experienceWhat Immad calls the "Startup Death Spiral" and how to escape itAs always, Equity will be back for you bright an early Monday morning. Talk soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews

Long-time Equity listeners and TechCrunch readers should be familiar with LAVCA, and association of capital managers in the Latin America region. We have reported on its data a number of times. Well, it turns out that LAVCA is part of the larger Global Private Capital Association, which keeps tabs on a host of markets that we're working to cover more carefully as startup activity becomes an increasingly global phenomenon.So to cap off the second quarter, and to get our claws into what is going on around the world, we had Cate Ambrose, the CEO of the GPCA on the show to riff with us about Asia and Africa and Latin America and Central and Easter Europe. Here's what we wanted to find out:How wild was the 2021-era venture peak in less mature startup markets?How resilient are smaller startup ecosystems in a more conservative venture and macroeconomic environment?Are we seeing green shoots anywhere in the world? Or put another way, where is the rebound kicking off?We closed with a short discussion on the role of go

Mary Ann and Alex are back for another busy news week chock full of deals to chew through.Here's the rundown:Deals of the Week: We think that the idea behind the recently-funded Honey Homes is excellent, but we're split about the cost. We also went over Gusto's latest financial achievements and its plans to team up with Remote.Fintech M&A: The biggest deal of the week in fintech was Visa's purchase of  Pismo. We haven't had unicorn-level acquisitions lately, so this one was welcome. Elsewhere in the space, Brex has brought on board a former SVB and a16z denizen, and Ramp bought Cohere.io (not this Cohere, the other one).Other M&A: But those weren't the only deals. Databricks bought MosaicML, IBM bought Apptio, and ThoughtSpot has acquired Mode Analytics.Help, my unicorn is starving: We closed with Alex's look at the declining funding to unicorn and web3 startups, as well as Rebecca Szkutak's latest on the secondary market in the process.Equity will be back on Wednesday as we head off into yet another

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. Mary Ann is taking over today's interview with David Vélez, the co-founder and CEO of Nubank, the $35 billion Sao-Paulo, Brazil-based digital bank that offers credit cards, checking accounts and life insurance to consumers.Equity listeners know that digital banking has been on our minds for some time now, so naturally we were excited to have David on the show. Here's what we got into:How Nubank has achieved -- and maintained profitability -- in this challenging macroeconomic environmentHow not only the LatAm fintech market differs from that of the U.S., but how founders in the region operate their businesses differently from their U.S. counterpartsThe state of digital banks in general and how David sees banking evolving in the next few years from the lens of both a founder and former investor (he once led Sequoia Capital's Latin American investments).Mary Ann and Alex are back on Friday with more Eq

Here's the rundown for the very last Equity Monday of Q2 2023:Crypto's mini-boom in the last week comes after a brutal few weeks of negative headlines; for the crypto-faithful, it must be a breath of fresh air.Startups: IRL was a digital fraud, Vanta is a unicorn to watch after quick ARR growth and a resulting valuation has grown into, and TreasurySpring is riding a changing macroeconomic climate to rapid fintech growth.As Amazon pledges more investment in India, we're seeing a lot of other big economic pieces move. Other American companies are pledging big dollars to the country as Japan looks to buy one of its domestic chip companies, and American investors are putting capital into their own domestic silicon players.Finally, Apptio is selling to IBM for $4.6 billion.Whew! That's a lot, but we had a good time and will see you back here on Wednesday!All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equi

Mary Ann and Alex are back, and once again this week they tapped the TechCrunch roster for expert input. This week were lucky enough to have Kirsten Korosec back on the podcast. She's TechCrunch's mobility lead, hosts a podcast of her own, and is one of our favorite humans.Here's the rundown:Deals of the Week: Mary Ann wanted to talk about Robinhood buying X1, a deal that seemed inexpensive but we lack enough numbers for full confidence; Alex wanted to riff on Dropbox's new AI fund, even if it does feel a little small; and Kirsten had notes for the team on Cruise's latest app rollout. Even if Mary Ann and Alex cannot find a way to agree on self-driving cars, we all thought that the Cruise bus is cute.Twitch and Reddit try to balance corporate requirements with community power: Building off our recent show digging into the creator economy, the crew tackled the latest from Twitch (a new creator-corporate revenue split of sorts) and Reddit (where the battle between the company and its power-users continues to bl

Before we get started: all the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you! On today's episode, Alex had Eric Silver, Head of Creative at the podcast collective Multitude on the show to help us sort through:What the hell happened with Spotify's big podcast push, and its resulting layoffs.Why tech platforms have not yet found a way to make creative work lucrative enough to engender a new 'creator middle class.'The state of the ad market, and its impacts on creative work more generally.Towards the end we had a moment to comment on AI, but we kept that somewhat far from our central theme.Long-time Equity listeners will recall that we've covered the creator economy a few times on the show and the blog, including:Yeah, funding for creator-focused startups is drying up [blog]F*ck creator funds, we need a creator index fund [Equity]Not every creator economy startup is built for creators [blog]And if you need even more, this investor survey from 2021 on all things creator-economy is

This time 'round we are here on a Tuesday due to an American holiday! Here's the rundown from Alex:Stocks are mixed the world around as central banks tinker with interest rates to try and tune their domestic economies. The crypto world remains muted.Alibaba's shakeup: The CEO of the Chinese tech conglomerate is leaving that role to run its cloud business, which is one of the pieces of the company that will be spun out.Intel managed to extract a handsome package from Germany in exchange for building a plant in the country.OpenAI is working to limit the impact of EU AI regulation on its products and services.No one wants to buy Tiger's startup stakes en masse, so it is reduced to selling loosies to anyone who wants them.Go-Ventures is now Argor Capital, and it has a new $240 million fund.And funding rounds from Yellow and ElevenLabs as Byju's cuts more staff.Don't forget, all the cool kids are taking our listener survey. Head here to make your voice heard! We are back bright and early tomorrow. Talk soon!For ep

All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey. We want to hear from you!It was a hectic week, with little in the way of the traditional Summer Slowdown making itself known. So, here's what Alex and Mary Ann covered with some help from our dear friend Jacquie Melinek:WWDC in a nutshell: In case you missed it, Apple had a big event this week. On tap were the usual run of software updates, and improved computers in both laptop and desktop format. And, you know, that other thing.Affirm partners with Amazon (again): This is not Affirm's first tie-up with Amazon, but investors are pretty excited that the pair of companies are once again linking arms. As we continue to wait for mega-unicorn Klarna's IPO — more notes here — we are keeping our ears close the BNPL ground.Cava's IPO continues to delight Alex: What has an IPO coming up and has this little podcast in a tizzy? Yep, it's Cava, the fast-casual chain that, thanks to a dollop or two of venture capital money, we get to cover!All things SEC and Cr

This week, we had Carta CEO Henry Ward on to chat through the early-stage market with us. Alex had a grip of data and a sheaf of questions, so here's what we got into:The current state of the early-stage venture capital market: From Ward's perspective, the early-stage market is in better shape than many folks think. It's the later-stages of venture capital that are the most moribund. We also riffed on the quality of startups that are raising today, and how much pain is coming for young tech companies that can't quite attract more capital.Carta's new Seed and Series A product: Carta is offering a mostly-automated method of closing early-stage rounds; we wanted to better understand the economics of the effort, and what the unicorn hopes to achieve from the work.We closed with a look ahead, and a series of fun closing questions with Ward.That's just the high-level summary. We also discussed entrepreneurship more broadly, the importance of LLCs, and even how to construct a podcast interview.Don't forget: our list

Here’s what Alex got into today:Stocks are mixed around the world this morning while crypto stays pretty flat. Earnings this week that we’re excited about include Gitlab, Couchbase, Yext, Smartsheet, and Hashicorp. (We’re also keeping an eye on the Atomic Wallet hack.)Reddit’s proposed API changes (charges, more like) are having a pretty big impact on the service’s userbase; there are calls for a blackout of certain forums in response to the proposed updates. Reddit, on the other hand, is a business and needs to make money.Sticking to social media, news broke this morning that Twitter’s revenues are down sharply compared to year-ago totals, at least when we consider its American advertising incomes. Twitter does more than just ads in North America, but given that it’s likely a pretty big chunk of its total top line, it’s not good news.Canva’s valuation was slashed by a mutual fund (something that we have seen a lot lately), the latest in a string of similar headlines for other unicorns.Closing, WWDC is today.

Mary Ann and Alex were a busy pair this week, so much so that they tagged in Dominic-Madori Davis from the TechCrunch+ crew to help out.Before we kick things off, our listener survey is back! If you can, please take a moment to let us know what you want more of, what you want less of, and how we can make this the kind of podcast you want to come back to every week.Now, here's what we got into:Fraud is bad: Elizabeth Holmes is in jail, and the SEC wrapped insider trading charges against a former Coinbase staffer. Our take? Breaking business law is bad and perhaps people should not do it. Controversial, we know.Deals of the Week: Alex is enamored with Web Roulette, while Mary Ann wanted to talk about Stripe's deal to buy Okay.Klarna's Q1 2023 results led Alex to share some enthusiasm that the fintech market could be rebounding, a topic that he's been going on about for some time.QED's plans to invest its new funds carefully is a clear example of the new investing climate, Mary Ann argued. The show also touched

This week, Mary Ann hopped on the mic with number one New York Times best selling author, producer, personal finance thought leader, and host of the Women & Money podcast, Suze Orman. We’re following up on Suze’s not-so-surprising-startup debut with SecureSave, what the company’s been up to and how Suze is thinking about protecting employees in today’s economy.Here’s what we got into:How little money many Americans have saved for emergencies and how SecureSave wants to change thatHow inflation may be making it harder for people to save when they have less money to do soWe ended, as always, with a “lightning” round Q&A in which Suze revealed her secret weapon for successFor the startup founders listening,  today is your last chance to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023! Fill out those applications while you still can, and Mary Ann and Alex will be back Friday to close out your week with a special guest.For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. E

This week, crypto prices are static, unlike a particular valuation and Alex is still mad about SPACs. Here's the rundown:Stocks around the world are happy that America is once again going to avoid a default; congrats, United States.At the same time, the crypto market is a bit boring right now, due in large part to muted trading volumes as the crypto winter tests new low temperatures.No one knows what Byju's is worth, but Blackrock is marking its price in one consistent direction.Serve Robotics is having a good run as a startup, partnering up with its prior parent company.The WSJ has some great data on SPACs that drove us nuts.Whew. What a way to start the week! We are back tomorrow!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together an

Mary Ann and Alex were a dynamic duo this week, and here's what they got into:The fascinating backers of Checkmate, and the future of online shopping: Mary Ann covered a very interesting Series A for Checkmate, a startup that not only has shown real legs on the competitive App Store, but also on social media platforms far and wide.Cava's IPO won't save the IPO market, but it could help all the same: Alex is so IPO-deprived that he's drawing connections between anything that files and the startup market. This time it's not even that much of a stretch!Daylight calls it quits: From the 'not a huge surprise' category comes the end of Daylight, a neobank aimed at the LGBTQ+ market that has been struggling for a while yet. This begged the question are themed neobanks going to make it?Layoffs, Layoffs, Layoffs: Soundcloud is cutting staff to get to profitability, which we can understand. Meta is cutting staff because it, well, wants to conserve capital for more share buybacks?Anthropic's massive funding round and wh