Equity

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The fully-vaxxed and officially fully-immune took over the podcast this week, with Natasha and Danny co-hosting the show while the inimitable Alex is out from Shot #2. Grace and Chris, as always, were behind the scenes making sure we sound pretty and don't fall down too many punny board game rabbit holes after vacation. Here's the rundown of what we got into: Crypto crashed -  thanks to either Elon or the guy who created Ethereum and then donated some to relief efforts for COVID-19.  We debated how signal gets lost and rediscovered and lost again in this news cycle, and what that means for anyone in tech trying to get a pulse of. what's actually happening. One symptom of market craze and disconnected booms? A startup named Caplight that wants more people to buy and sell short positions on private startups.  We then pivoted into the last bit of our 'The World I

For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Danny unpacked Natasha's latest project: The Duolingo EC-1. The 12,000 word four-part series was published last week and is worth a read. But, until you get to it, enjoy our podcast that doubles-clicks into its most interesting bits. [caption id="attachment_2146587" align="aligncenter" width="482"]  Duo, Duolingo's mascot, flying around. Image Credits: Duolingo [/caption] Here's how it went, after we got our morning allergy banter out of the way: What's an EC-1? A TechCrunch-style deep-dive into one of the startup world's most promising, and interesting companies. What's with the flying vermin up above? That's Duolingo's mascot. Which is a combination of hypercutness and modest menace. (You will have fun learning a language. Or the owl will visit.) Why did we write about Duolingo? No, it wasn't only because Duolingo is edtech. Natasha dug into the company's product-led growth mode, and its views on gamification, which were fascinating. What's up with today's show na

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 private market news, talks 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. This weekend was all about memecoins. And I am sorry about that. But Equity doesn't run the world, sadly, it merely notes what is going on: Dogecoin dropped during Elon Musk's SNL appearance. Which was somewhat ironic. Also there's another memecoin that is skyrocketing. Palantir, DoorDash, Airbnb, Alibaba will report earnings this week, amongst others. Clubhouse is finally coming to Android. In the United States. By invite. So, if that's you, congrats, welcome to the app. A major cyberattack and ransom situation in the United States is a data point, yet again, that we're woefully unprepared

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The whole team was aboard for this recording, with Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Danny, Alex, and Natasha on the mics. We had to cut more than we included this week, which should give you a good idea of how busy the startup and VC worlds are of late. Make sure that you are following the podcast on Twitter, where we post all sorts of memes and cuts and, perhaps, the occasional video here and there. That aside, here's the rundown: Investing legend David Swenson passed away. Twitter is buying Scroll (neat, very cool) as part of its subscription push, but also killing Nuzzel in the process (bad, very uncool). Natasha and Danny fill us in on why Nuzzel will be missed. Alex has thoughts on why Twitter-Scroll is good. Epic bought ArtStation and cut its marketplace take rate. This is the future, says Danny, who throws his own estimates in, too. Sony and Discord are tying up a

For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into the world of the IPO. Not just the numbers and the metrics and the calculations of valuations at diluted, and non-diluted share counts. No. We wanted to talk about the morality and efficacy of going public. So to round out our conversation we enlisted Steve Cakebread, the CFO of Yext and Garth Mitchell, the CFO of Latch. Cakebread is known for being aboard the Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext's IPOs. Mitchell has sat on both sides of the table during the IPO process, and is currently helming the money equations as Latch approaches the public markets via a SPAC. For more context, Yext, a company that first launched at a Techcrunch event back in 2009, provides data tooling and search software to businesses, while Latch builds software and hardware for rental-focused buildings. Yext is public. Latch will be in a few months. Back to our topic, we asked Cakebread to talk about his thesis on why going public earlier than later can help a company's maturity

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 private market news, talks 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. This morning was a notable one in the life of TechCrunch the publication, as our parent company's parent company decided to sell our parent company to a different parent company. And now we're to have to get new corporate IDs, again, as it appears that our new parent company's parent company wants to rebrand our parent company. As Yahoo. Cool. Anyway, a bunch of other stuff happened as well: Flywire, a Boston-based payments company filed to go public. More on the site about this shortly. Earnings this week are coming from Uber and Lyft and PayPal and Square and more. Dell is offloading Boomi to

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Technology Podcast”! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We’d appreciate it. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we’ll keep doing our thing and making each other laugh. (Note: we are in last place, which is, well, something.) Regardless, the Equity team got together once again this week to not only go over the news of the week, but also to do a little soul searching. You see, some news broke yesterday, so we figured that we had to talk about it in our usual style. So, here's the rundown: Do you want to buy TechCrunch? Apparently you can? Albeit probably along with a few billion dollars worth of other assets -- whatever is left of Yahoo and AOL -- you can now own an NFT. A non-fungible TechCrunch. What is ahead for us? We don't know. So if you do know, tell us. Until then we'll just yo-yo gently between panic and

For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Danny and Chris dove into the world of audio. Sure, you've heard of Clubhouse, but there's lots more going on than just a single app's cultural rise. So from the biggest companies to niche startups, we compiled all the recent audio news into a single show for all our delectation. Here's the rundown: Facebook is building a number of audio products, including a Clubhouse clone and a short-form audio service that we think could be neat. Reddit is also building a Clubhouse-like service, and Alex is excited about it. It's not just the established social networks that are trying out live audio. Peanut, a social networking app for women, added live audio "Pods" to its platform. It kicked off a conversation on what it takes to win this market, and what's a smart versus silly bet. While a drop in downloads doesn't necessarily mean a drop in active users, it's worth pointing out that Clubhouse's monthly downloads dropped 72% in March. Where is that gosh darn Android ap

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 private market news, talks 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. This weekend had a key story, earnings are on the way, and there is a huge number of funding rounds to talk about. Ready? The Indian government's move to remove a number of social media posts critical of its handling of COVID-19 was the key news item this weekend. As the country's healthcare system buckles, and deaths spike, the move by the current administration to censor the Internet was just about as bad a look you could imagine. At least in terms of a tech response. Also this weekend conversation continued about Substack's recent push to hire away well-known writers from traditionally-respected publicati

First and foremost, Equity was nominated a Webby for "Best Technology Podcast"!!! Drop everything and go Vote for Equity! We'd appreciate. A lot. And even if we lose, well, we'll keep doing our thing and making each other laugh. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Chris got together to chat through the week's biggest news. And like every other week in recent memory, it was a busy one. But we did our best to hit some M&A news, some unicorn news, and some funding news from smaller startups. Now, onto the show rundown, here's what we discussed: The Discord-Microsoft deal is done, and Danny has a hot take. Namely, in his view, the deal was mostly banker chatter more than a real possibility. More chaff than wheat, in other words. Agree or not, we're stoked for the Discord IPO in a few years (quarters?) time. Mastercard bought Erkata, and Danny was on hand to hand to explain why we care about the deal. Sure, it was $825 million in value, but some venture data from Finledger helped explain just how much capital is flo

For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Danny wanted to chat crypto. No, not cryptography, but cryptocurrency. The topic has been hot in recent months thanks to Coinbase, recent weeks thanks to the rapid price appreciation in the value of many coins, and in recent days because dogecoin went crazy. Vote for Equity to win a Webby so that our parents are proud! So with our minds tuned to the future of money, and commerce, and content, here's the show's rundown: Recent crypto news has been more than busy, with Venmo adding crypto support, Brian Brooks joining Binance, and the Coinbase direct listing. But that's not all, there have been a host of NFT marketplaces that have raised millions in the past week. We talk about Rarible, SuperRare, OpenSea, and Dapper Labs. We talk about differentiation, UX, and if more than one marketplace can win. Dogecoin's to the moon moment had reached a new price high and come down some before our show recorded, but the cryptocurrency's joke apparently is still funny after

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 private market news, talks 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. First, our news roundup from last week was probably the most fun I've had in a few months, so make sure to catch up on that if you haven't. That said, here's a rundown of what we got into on the show this morning: The new Clubhouse round has us thinking about what is a good venture-style bet, and what isn't. At least you can't fault the Clubhouse crew for not having conviction. UiPath raised its IPO range, as expected. There's an Apple event this week, which caused us to wonder why more startups aren't competing with the giant. Cryptos have recovered from the flash crash, which had us think

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was yet another busy week, but that just means we had a great time putting the show together and recording it. Honestly we have a lot of fun this week, and we hope that you crack a smile while we dig through the latest as a team. Ready? Here's the rundown: The Coinbase direct listing! Here's our notes on its S-1, its direct listing reference price, and its results. And we even wrote about the impact that it might have on other startup verticals! Grab's impending SPAC! As it turns out Natasha loves SPACs now, and even Danny and Alex had very little to say that was rude about this one. Degreed became a unicorn, proving yet again that education for the enterprise is a booming sub-sector. Outschool also became an edtech unicorn, thanks to a new round led by C

For this week's deep dive Natasha and Alex wanted to dig into the Tonal EC-1, a huge document spread across a number of posts. Our goals were pretty simple: To better understand Tonal's journey, and also to get into the mind of its author. So we corralled JP Mangalindan into firing up his computer, microphone, and recording software for a chat. Here's what we covered: What is Tonal, why is it interesting, and why did JP spend so much time learning about the company? What did he have to leave out of the final report? His views on fitness gear, and the Peloton effect more broadly What was it like to write something so gosh darn long? The Tonal EC-1 comprises four main articles representing about 10,600 words and a reading time of about 43 minutes: How a homegrown experiment became one of the fastest-growing companies in fitness tech  Millions of dollars and 3.5 years, and it all came down to this Building online communities for fun, profit and product Can Tonal become the luxury fitness market champion

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 private market news, talks 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. It is good to be back! There was a lot to get through, so, in order that we discussed the topics on the show, here's our rundown: Microsoft is buying Nuance Communications today. The deal is worth around $19.7 billion. The transaction could be viewed as pretty good news for AI startups and the broader private healthtech space. That said, how much bigger should Microsoft be allowed to get by absorbing rival public companies? Tiger Global is making a wave of bets on Indian startups. And from the political realms, read this Buzzfeed News story on India and its tech ecosystem, this piece on what's h

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and  and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s rigamarole of news. Alex took some well-deserved time off, but that meant we got to poke a little fun at him and create a Special Edition segment to start off the show. Jokes aside, this week was yet another spree of creator economy, edtech, and new fund announcements, with fresh and unexpected news hailing from Natasha's home state, New Jersey. Here's what we got into: Box got a lifeline in the form of a $500 million check from KKR, and as Danny mentions, Box CEO Aaron Levie shifts his role a bit, too. Patreon, an early startup in the creator economy space, has tripled its valuation to $4 billion. Another, not-so-old startup with the same reported valuation? Clubhouse. We threaded the line between the two, and gave some color on a new monetization feature rolled out. As an aside, looks like Cl

For this week’s deep dive, the Equity team sat down not with external investors or founders, but with two of our own. Yes, this week, for the first time Natasha and Alex got to break a little internal news instead of focusing on the world outside. Why did we have Jordan Crook and Darrell Etherington on the show? Because we're jazzed to add a second startups-focused podcast to a slowly but surely growing TC podcast network: Found. Found lands April 9, so tune in! The show will focus on talking to early-stage founders about building their company, from the emotional rollercoaster moments to tactical insights no one tells you until you've raised your first dollar. Equity will keep its eyes on the news, with extra attention to all the dollar signs that are to be found in startup-land and the venture capital world. At the same time, Found will bring a number of startup founders aboard to talk about the more human, and procedural work of building the next great tech company. We hope you love a new show from our fri

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 private market news, talks 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. This morning we took a global look at the news, trying to take in the latest from around our little planet: American stocks are set to rise as much of the world had the day off from trading; Indian stocks fell on the back of poor COVID-19 news. The biggest tech news was this bit of bad news from Facebook, if you are a fan of privacy. And the FT has data on the Chinese tech liquidity market that isn't great news. Amazon is in trouble after it illegally retaliated against workers. And there's more reporting on how low the company was willing to stoop to try and block union activity. Corporations, they're alwa

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was a busy week on the IPO front, Danny was buried in getting the Tonal EC-1 out, and Natasha took some time off. But the host trio managed to prep and record a show that was honestly a kick to record, and we think, a pleasure to listen to! So, for your morning walk, here's what we have for you: The Substack conversation: Does the new $65 million check make sense? What is Substack? Does it have a moat? Why is Natasha's URL so much better than Alex's? Cameo raised $100 million and none of us really have a bone to pick with that. Danny actually argues in favor of it. The Clubhouse conversation: Does every single product need to feature live audio? The answers appears to be yes, oddly enough. Discord comes up along with Spotify, as does LinkedIn. And somehow, Mic

For this week’s deep dive, the Equity team got ahold of three founders from the recent Y Combinator batch (more here, and here) to chat through their experiences with a remote accelerator. TechCrunch was curious if the program lived up to founder expectations, how extreme timezone differentials were handled, and how easy it was to build camaraderie during a digital program. Oh, and how their demo day went. Here's who is on the show: Benjamin Croc, a founder at BrioHR (TechCrunch coverage here) Trisha Bantigue, a founder at Queenly (TechCrunch coverage here) Adam Alpert, a founder at Pangea (TechCrunch coverage here) The short version is that the founders were generally happy with Y Combinator being remote, and that the setup allowing them to stay in their normal location was plus. We also asked the founders for learnings regarding how to best handle remote accelerators in the future. More from Equity on Friday, at which point we'll put Y Combinator aside for a good while. Credits: Equity is produced