Equity

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Before we get into this week’s show notes, some programming notes:First up, use code “EQUITY” for a special listener discount for Disrupt tickets. We’re mere weeks away, and you should come hang out with us when we record on opening day!We also have a special for those impacted by layoffs. If you were laid off, go here to get a free ticket to TechCrunch Disrupt’s Expo!Alright, throat clearing aside, here's what we got into this week: $700M water? Yeah, the Liquid Death round was a big deal in the news this week because everyone had an opinion on the matter. Us included. While there's good reason to doubt the DTC model today -- cough cough, public markets -- Alex was on hand to stand up for the, er, near unicorn.How much should you pay your staff? From there it was time to chat about fair compensation, and how a startup called Comprehensive wants to take a crack at the questi

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Alex asked: How are platforms responding to the new creator landscape? (Don't worry, the Wednesday show is still Natasha's to lead, she was just a little under the weather this week!)Happily, Alex was not running solo, as TechCrunch's own Amanda Silberling was with the show this week -- not for the first time! -- to chat through the key questions we wanted to parse our way through:What is the new creator landscape?How did we get to today from the go-go 2020/2021 period of creator-focused venture deals?What are creator-focused platforms focused on today?And, finally, what options do creators have today, based on our understanding of the market?The idea for the episode stems in part from our reporting, including this recent look at the amount of money that c

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Don’t forget that the code “EQUITY” can save you money on Disrupt tickets and TechCrunch+ access. And it makes us here on the show look good!Markets: Stocks are largely down around the world, yet set to rise here on American exchanges. Perhaps the domestic selloff is pausing? Elsewhere in the world of money, cryptocurrencies are boring in the last week.Startups: Big news from TikTok, including notes on how quickly it has been adding revenue in Europe and the fact that the social network is forging ahead with a new social shopping effort in the United States. And, Talk360 added even more dosh to its recent funding round, which TechCrunch dug into here.Quick Hits: Kim Kardashian is in trouble for crypto promotions past, to the tune of a seven-figure settlement. That's a lot of capital, frankly, and we're curious who will be next under the SEC's hammer. Oh, and Tesla delivery nu

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Before we get into this week's show notes, some programming notes:First up, use code “EQUITY” for a special listener discount for Disrupt tickets. We’re less than one month away!We also have a special for those impacted by layoffs. If you were laid off, go here to get a free ticket to TechCrunch Disrupt’s Expo.Ok, now to the show. This week, Natasha, Mary Ann and Rebecca took the mic, with Theresa on production duty, to talk through quite a diverse news cycle. Our deals of the week were Scout, HopSkipDrive and Hustle Fund's new fund (so I think you finally get the headline of this show).Then we jumped into the human side of the layoff story, as Mary Ann and Christine dug into four stories of those impacted by the Better.com layoff spree.https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/28/better-com-employees-detail-their-experiences/ After that, we debated whether or not the Adobe/Figma deal

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: How does the "build in public" mindset impact the way that startups are built? Alex and Natasha chatted through the difference between building in public, going direct, startup PR, and just straight-up hype.We spoke about the challenges in community and recent examples that show the difficulty of building in public (and then clamming up).The conversation included Launch House, Copy.ai, On Deck, Egnyte, and even Databricks. While we have very biased reasons for more companies to build in public -- we love to learn things! -- we tried to expand the conversation to include more perspectives.We'll be back on Friday with our regular news roundup, an episode that may include a voice that you'll hear more frequently in the coming months!Before we g

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Don’t forget that the code “EQUITY” can save you money on Disrupt tickets and TechCrunch+ access. And it makes us here on the show look good!Markets: Stocks are mostly down around the world today, taking especially large hits in Asia. U.S. shares are set to fall as well when they begin to trade. Major cryptos are also off in the last 24 hours, but not enough to make a fuss about.Startups: Today we took a look at new fundraises at Vendease, an African logistics company in the food space, and Disperse, a U.K-based construction tech company that wants to map building sites. That market, it turns out, is huge.Quick Hits: Do Kwon has been hit with a red notice, which means that he will likely soon be in custody. However, some are irked that he's in trouble for causing a financial meltdown and losing a lot of folks' money. What's the argument there? That he wasn't being malicious,

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Coming to hang with us at Disrupt, where Equity is kicking off the entire event? Use code 'EQUITY' to save 15% on your tickets. Hell yeah, and see you there!Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann jumped on the mic, with Theresa running production, to talk through the biggest headlines from the week!Deals of the Week! This time 'round we had Polywork raising $28 million, Block Party raising $4.8 million, and Remofirst and its own recent fundraise. Naturally we had to leave 234 deals on the cutting room floor, but these were the ones we could not wait to chat more about. Also, don't Polywork, Block Party and Remofirst sound like fun people to get dinner with? Just us?Insurtech goes Niche: From there it was time to riff on a series of stories from Mary Ann, focused on specialized insurtech companies, and the fact that Pie just proved that it is still possible to raise nine-figures as an ins

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: What does breaking into venture capital look like today, and how is it changing? Alex and Becca jumped on the mic to discuss this and start with a refresh on our latest op-ed: "4 views on unpaid venture internships." We talked through three buckets of venture onramps: the traditional route, the new wave and the tourist strategy. Each has their own pros and cons, and includes everything from rolling funds to the real definition of partner.We also covered more on the value of certain on ramps, and if network is the right thing to disrupt (or if its more track record based)We tried not to gang up on Dorm Room Fund too much, but did chat about why their $12.5 million fund that's run by unpaid students irked us and other initiatives we thought we

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Don’t forget that the code “EQUITY” can save you money on Disrupt tickets and TechCrunch+ access. And it makes us here on the show look good!Here's what we got into this Fine Monday Morning:Stocks are down around the world, while crypto-assets are down even more; post-Merge you might have anticipated better performance from tokens, but it has not yet come to be.The WSJ has some juicy notes on the upcoming Instacart IPO, namely that it is not expecting to sell a lot of its own stock in the transaction. Why does that matter? It tells us that the company is not burning that much cash -- a useful thing to know ahead of an anticipated IPO filing coming this year.From startup-land: Ola is cutting jobs, two delivery logistics startups are merging in Sweden, and Byld Ventures is putting together a venture capital fund to watch.Finally, Do Kown is a wanted man, shares of TakeTwo are d

If you are into web3, the biggest news of the week in tech was not the massive Figma-Adobe deal. No, the leading story of the last few days -- arguably even the last few weeks -- has been the Ethereum Merge.The Merge, an upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain that moved it from a proof of work (PoW) to a proof of stake (PoS) system of consensus was a long-awaited shift that finally took place this week. And as the change in technology is expected to reduce the carbon footprint of the popular blockchain by ~99%, we had lots to get into.https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/15/now-that-the-ethereum-merge-is-behind-us-whats-next/But we didn't just want to riff on the startup angle, or the web3 perspective, because the Merge had huge implications for crypto as an industry and its place in the world of emerging tech. That's why we got together our startup and blockchain podcast teams for a collab episode to hit both angles: Anita and Jacquie from Chain Reaction, and Natasha and Alex from Equity. This also gave us a 50-50 Tec

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann jumped on the mic, with Theresa on backup, to talk through the biggest headlines.We started with a look at the Figma-Adobe deal, worth some $20 billion. TechCrunch's news coverage is here, and Alex has more notes here.Deals of the Week: Maven, Patreon, and Modulous.We also spoke about the Launch House issue, and what to make of the model, and management of the company. The conversation naturally landed us on just what community is.From there, Europe! Which is seeing a wave a new venture funds, leading to some notable intra-continent competition.And then we wrapped with a short note on the latest on the Twitter-Musk deal.If you are coming to Disrupt, use the code “EQUITY” to save 15%. It makes us look good internally, and gets you a cheaper discount to our first Disrupt live show in the history of the podcast.Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT a

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: How is YC evolving to meet a changed market? The question is fresh off of Demo Day last week, where Team TC and TC+ banded forces to cover the twice-a-year event that sees hundreds of startups launch to the public.These days, Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on recent news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from this past batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution today.We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going. Equity has a live show on Thursday, and lots more to come. Chat soon!Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscri

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.Don't forget that the code "EQUITY" can save you money on Disrupt ticketsand TechCrunch+ access. And it makes us here on the show look good!Now, what did we get into today?Stocks are higher around the world, while major cryptos have risen sharply in the last week.The Ethereum update known as the 'Merge' is just around the corner. The change in consensus model at ETH is a big darn deal. How the tech change goes, and what the market reaction is to it, will be key events this week.And speaking of crypto, the SEC is getting even busier in its efforts to have more oversight of the space.From the startup front, Gotham Greens and Diveplane both raised money, $310 million and $25 million respectively. Each are a part of neat, growing sectors in startup-land, making their fundraising a bit more impactful than individual rounds tend to be.And then quick takes: Everyone's worried about

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. As you can tell by the headline of this episode, this is a bonus episode all about Y Combinator Demo Day (and the terms we heard most often during the two-day affair).Natasha and Alex jumped on Twitter Spaces to talk through our favorites of the batch, geography changes, and diversity shake-up that included less women getting funded batch over batch. Below are some of the posts we pulled from:The biggest moonshots in YC’s S22 batchOur 11 favorite companies from YC’s S22 Demo Day: Part 1 Our 10 favorite startups from YC’s S22 Demo Day: Part 2Delving into YC’s diversity data following a category shakeupWhere is Y Combinator startup-hunting in 2022?Y Combinator week is busy, but we made it through! Talk Monday!Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Credits: Equity

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.What.A.Week.Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann jumped on the mic, with Theresa on backup, to talk through the biggest headlines. For our Apple coverage, click here. For our YC coverage, click here.All that aside, here's what we got into on today's episode:Kim Kardashian surprised us all -- yet again -- with the news that she is co-founding a private equity firm. We also talked about how Userpilot raised $4.6 million to help SaaS companies offer a more personalized user experience and Varjo - an early mover in building XR headsets and software for enterprises - landing $40 million in new funding.We pivoted to riff on a couple of acquisitions in the grocery delivery space, both of which thought were pretty cool and made sense. Instacart acquired Rosie (gotta love the name) in an example of not putting all its eggs in one basket, and Misfit Markets announced it is buying Imperfect Foods

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic and unpack the rest. Today we asked: How is the economic downturn and startup slowdown impacting VCs, and the folks who finance venture capital funds?Unlike our usual mid-week episodes, Natasha was not at the helm. Instead, Alex stood in for her and brought along TechCrunch+ venture capital reporter Rebecca Szkutak in the co-hosting slot. Rebecca is an ace when it comes to the mechanics of venture capital, making her the perfect voice for the day.To start, Alex and Rebecca riffed on the state of startups in today's market -- and if things are as bad as some make them out to be. From there, the Equity crew talked through the venture capital response to changing market conditions. And the conversation wrapped with notes on what LPs are doing, whether they should be or not.While we largely focus on startups and fo

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.We are back on a Tuesday instead of a Monday thanks to an American holiday, which means we are looking at a compressed week. But don't let the shorter window for news fool you -- it's going to be busy.Stocks are largely higher today, but off the back of some rough trading weeks so don't read too much into the bounce. The world of crypto appears pretty quiet, as it has for some time now.Y Combinator Demo Day is this week, which means a flood of startups and other news is in the offing. TechCrunch will be all over the news, naturally. Strap in.And there's an Apple event this week as well, possibly bringing new iPhones and other related consumer gear. How excited you are about that will depend on how old your current phone is.From there, it was time for economic concerns and worries about how a worse, or lesser macroeconomic picture could impact startups. We talk a lot about mar

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This was a Live Week, meaning that Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann recorded the show on Twitter Spaces, hanging out with a bunch of the Equity family. Good times were had! We also disclosed that we are recording live at Disrupt this year! Yes, so come hang out as we tape the show on opening day, full of coffee and enthusiasm.Now, to the show notes. Here's what we have in store for you:Deals of the Week: Stacked, which is taking on Twitch with a web3 twist; Astro, which wants to help connect Latin American developers to American companies; Anchor, which is building a BaaS platform in Africa.From there we riffed on the big changes at Y Combinator, and what it means for an early-stage venture firm managing over $3.2 billion in assets. The executive shift touched down just in advance of next week's demo day. Next week is going to be busy.Then Mary Ann walked us through issues at real-

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, along with Alex's help, Natasha asked: Who should be raising Party Rounds? The episode was inspired by Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly column, “When the party has confetti but no allergen-friendly appetizers" and the companion TechCrunch+ piece with Anita, “Investment clubs are cool again, and maybe community is, too.”Here's what we got into:The definition of party rounds, boundaries and the fact that we don't entirely agree on if there needs to be a lead or nahHow has party round funding changed? What place do they hold in the ecosystem?Is this vehicle better for experienced founders versus first-time founders?The pros and cons of each sideEquity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.This week Alex was back with Grace and our new producer Theresa Loconsolo to kick off the week. This Monday morning we recorded right before Garry Tan announced that he was heading back to Y Combinator as its President. Dang.But we still had a good sheaf of things to talk about!Stocks are not having a good day around the world, after having a pretty tough last Friday. It's hardly bullish for the IPO market.Things weren't much better in crypto-land, where bitcoin and ether are off from their week-ago prices, and NFT volumes remain muted.And speaking of quiet, startup news -- Y Combinator apart! -- was modest over the weekend. It appears that the August slowdown is both real, and here. Frankly startups could use a shot in the arm to get venture back closer to 2021's level of insanity. Can the Instacart IPO that we expect be the needed catalyst?Another potential catalyst of Good