Equity

This is our Wednesday show, in which we talk through the week’s leading startup and venture capital news. This is short week, but there’s still a lot to talk about:Loora’s $12 million round is a reminder that AI is going to find purchase in a host of new markets. The company wants to use AI for conversational language training. Sure, humans are good at that, but they are also expensive. Software aims to be more affordable.Dili is building an AI service to help investors handle their due diligence. Given that some accounting and financial work can be described as rote, the concept here makes good sense. The company just closed $3.6 million.Reddit may include a neat way to get some of its power users onto its ownership docket for its upcoming IPO.And from the venture side of the startup coin, Bluestein Ventures has a new foodtech fund, while Partech has put together the largest African venture fund out there.We’ll be back Friday morning! Chat then!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast we

This is our weekly kick-off show, coming to you Tuesday morning as yesterday was a holiday here in the States. Here’s the rundown:Crypto prices are up, and we’re looking at another busy earnings week. Palo Alto Networks, Sprout Social, Nvidia and Block will report this week.Planity has put together a $48 million Series C, which is a super neat vertical SaaS deal. Software and payments make for a tasty combo, and Planity wants to bring those benefits to salons in Europe.The EU is after TikTok under the DSA, which could have major implications for social media regulation.And Walmart is buying Vizio; LockBit got smashed; and MariaDB has a buyer on the horizon.In closing, this WSJ piece on San Francisco is worth your time.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 and more! Cre

On today's news round up, Alex, Mary Ann and Karyne are looking at:Deals of the Week: Rasa’s $30 million Series C had our tongues wagging. The startup is building finservice-focused conversational AI tools. Karyne wanted to talk about the latest round at the intersection of AI and crypto, while Alex wanted to riff on Hippo Harvest’s $21 million round for indoor robot farming.Venture capital’s year of transition: After OpenView called it quits, and Countdown Capital returned funds to LPs it became clear that venture is evolving. New news that Foundry is not going to raise another fund after its current $500 million vehicle added another name to our roster of venture firms that are taking a different direction in the future.YC’s new call for startups: Well-known startup accelerator Y Combinator has a new request for startup list. Given the weight that YC carries in startup-land, we had to dig into what it’s proposing. Though we’re a little skeptical of the near-term impact of spatial computing, the other update

Welcome to our Wednesday show, in which we talk through the week’s leading startup and venture capital news. Today we have an absolute pile of material, so let’s get to work:Bret Taylor’s new startup is turning heads: Known for his work at Facebook, Salesforce and OpenAI, Taylor’s new startup Sierra is building conversational AI agents. It has raised a mountain of capital to date, which it might need given that it’s not alone in its niche.FlowFi’s counter-cultural decision: FlowFi is building software to help startups keep their books more intelligently. But it’s not going to try and replace human inputs into financial work. Instead, it’s pairing its software with a labor marketplace so that startups can blend human and computer intelligence. If this means more GAAP accounting for startups, we’re here for it.Bold and Antithesis snag new capital: Bold raised $50 million for its Latin American fintech business, in good news for the sector and region that once went together like peanut butter and honey. Meanwhil

This morning we have an interesting mix of stories, which bring technology, politics and AI together in interesting ways. To work:Stocks: It’s another big week for earnings, including Hubspot, Instacart, Monday.com, and Cisco. We should learn a lot about the state of software and hardware sales as last year ended, and what some critical tech names see for the rest of the year.Crypto: Prices are up in the crypto world over the last week. Coinbase reports this week as well, which should give us a feel for how optimistic the leading North American crypto company is feeling.Waymo: Some folks set fire to a Waymo car in San Francisco. Which is so goddamned dumb that I would pull my hair out if I had any.Bugcrowd: A $102 million round? You love to see it. Mega-rounds have become less common in recent quarters, so when bug-bounty-focused Bugcrowd put together just such a round, we had to talk about it.AI field trips: No matter where you are founded, you are going to need to keep tabs on the AI work going on in Silico

Here’s the rundown:Deals of the Week: Adam Neumann wants to buy WeWork from bankruptcy, Starship Technologies raised $90 million for a product that 100% of the crew love, and Ambience Healthcare’s massive $70 million round also got a warm reception for its target market.LatAm Rising: We love Latin America here at Equity, but have been a bit puzzled why its venture capital totals have fallen as far as they have. New data makes it plain that startups in the region are doing rather well. What gives?And to close out, earnings, ad spend, and the state of the economy. Advertising can operate a bit as a ‘canary in the coal mine‘ for economic health, Kirsten points out. Alex also brought up AI as a potential growth catalyst for tech companies. All told? Things aren’t perfectly sunny, but when we consider the tech forecast there’s no rain to be found.We’ll be back on Monday!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 t

This is our startup-focused Wednesday episode, so we’re taking a deep look at a number of startup fundraisings, and the latest from the world of venture capital itself. Startups and capital, it’s our jam!Here’s what we got into on the show today:Goodshuffle raised $5 million, showing that vertical SaaS is far from kaput, even if software valuations remain under strain.SUMA Wealth put $2.2 million into its own accounts, showing that audience-tuned fintech products still have legs. SUMA Wealth’s target Latinx demographic seems to be resonating with what the startup is building.Behold! A crypto startup showing hella consumer traction.On the social media side, Bluesky is now open to everyone and growing quickly, and Blush raised $7 million more to keep its dating app invite-only.And then there were more rounds! Finally closed $10 million, while Klas put together $1 million for its edtech efforts.In closing, Episode 1 has a new early-stage UK fund that we wanted to talk about.For episode transcripts and more, head

This is our Monday show, in which we look back at the weekend and the week ahead. A big thanks to Maggie for stepping back into the Equity seat while Theresa is out today.Here’s what we got into:Stocks are mixed around the world as investors digest the possibility of high interest rates persisting for longer.Crypto price movements seem to have eased in recent weeks in the wake of bitcoin spot ETF launches.Yandex’s parent to exit Russia: At a huge cost, it turns out. Given Russian sanctions, owning tech assets inside the country is not a good proposition. But when you sell, you will take more than a haircut.Everbridge is going private: For $1.5 billion, we hasten to add. Not a bad price bump for the 2016-era IPO, but still far from the value it commanded in 2021.And from Startup Land, Wonder Ventures has two new funds, Naboo raised $8 million, and ProducePay put together $38 million to tackle food waste.We closed out with this fascinating CNN story about how a finance worker was scammed out of $25M after a dee

The amazing Mary Ann Azevedo was out this week, so Kirsten Korosec, Karyne Levy and Alex Wilhelm took to the mics to chat through the most important tech news of the week. And if you haven't already, head here to listen to our interview with founder and former VC Anshu Sharma about building competitive products and defining new markets.Here's what we got into on the show today:The latest Congressional hearing went about as expected: Poorly.Deals of the Week: Zum has raised $140 million for EV school transit; Ramp is still out there buying smaller companies despite a slew of layoffs across fintech; and Metronome's usage-based billing software is growing fast.Speaking of fintech layoffs: Job cuts at Block and Paypal underscore the fact that we are not out of the tech layoffs era. Indeed, it's getting worse.And in closing: Cap VC is building AI tools for venture investors. How much of a venture capitalist's work can be automated? As with every industry, we're going to find out.We'll be back on Monday!For episode

This is our interview show, where we sit down with interesting, knowledgeable folks and dive deep into what they are building, designing, or thinking about.Today, we have Anshu Sharma back on the podcast. Last time, the Skyflow CEO riffed with us on interest rates and business cycles. This time, we wanted to talk to him about a theory he recently wrote up for TechCrunch: The Innovator’s Dilemma.Or perhaps, a partial solution to that dilemma. The gist is that instead of using lower-cost products to take on incumbents, you might want to start at the top end of the market. This comes to bear today with the Apple Vision Pro headset, which is very expensive, and is entering a category replete with big investments and occasional returns.Equity will be back tomorrow with our regular news roundtable, so we’ll chat with you 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 

This is our startup-focused, Wednesday episode, so today we’re counting down important venture rounds and chatting our way through other startup and VC news. Here’s the rundown:Plex raises $40M, targets profitability: The media streaming company thinks that it can reach black ink by the end of this year, or early 2025. Not bad for a very expensive industry.Rebellions raises $124M to take on Nvidia: What is designing new AI chips and is partnered up with Samsung? Rebellions, which is now quite a lot richer in cash terms thanks to a new round.Nile is building a new data system for SaaS: Multi-tenancy is tricky, but why should SaaS companies have to reinvent the wheel?Aurora Solar joins the layoff parade: Solar is booming, but that doesn’t mean that vertical SaaS companies in the space are growing as fast as they planned.And on the venture front, Giant Ventures raised $250 million for two funds, Poland’s SMOK Ventures closed a new $25 million vehicle, while Ubiquity Ventures proves that solo GPs are not dead yet

Here's what we got into today:Massive earnings week ahead: Big tech companies are dropping their quarterly results in the coming days, so we'll hear from Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon. Other companies are reporting as well, but the bigger the market cap, the bigger the splash.Arc's new mobile app is a cool search concept: Best known for its desktop browser, The Browser Company has a new mobile app that could change how we search on the go.Reddit could target $5 billion valuation in its IPO: The number makes a lot of sense given what we know about Reddit's revenue history. More on that here.And in closing: Meta and Apple, what Garry said, and OpenAI vs. the EU.We have a packed week coming up, so check your favorite podcast app 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 f

This is our interview show, where we sit down with an interesting, knowledgeable guest and dive deep into their favorite topics. For this weekend’s Special Equity Edition, we invited Gené Teare to come back on the podcast. Longtime listeners will recall that we’ve had Gené on a time or two to chat venture capital data with us, and she’s back to do the same this week!We’re back to dig into Q4 2023 venture capital results and what’s coming up this year. For backing data, here’s Gené’s Crunchbase News author archive, and here are a few posts that I have put out on the same set of topics.On the show we looked into stages, sectors — including both AI and web3 — and where we are seeing both weakness and strength. Gené was a treat to have on the show, and we’ll have her back this year as 2024 comes into sharper focus.Equity is back on Monday, so see you in a couple days!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

Here’s what we got up to on our Friday show:Deals of the Week: Plural has a new $432 million fund, Vroom is no longer in the car selling business, oddly, and we chatted through the Fantuan-Chowbus deal.From there we turned to fintech (generally) and Brex (more specifically). In short, Brex is a big company today but not one that is having a lot of fun at the moment, it appears. With reports indicating that its growth has slowed and its burn remained sticky, it recently cut staff.To close, we dug into why edtech might not be in the dire straits that many presume that it is. A recent TechCrunch+ investor survey finds notable pockets of enthusiasm in the sector. AI, as you may have heard, is a big deal.That’s our week concluded! We start back up on Monday morning! See you there.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 sho

This is our startup-focused, Wednesday episode, so today we're counting down important venture rounds, and chatting our way through other startup and VC news.Here's what we got into:Artisse AI's seed round caught our eye for two big reasons: First, its selfie app is cool; and second, despite competing in a crowded space, it's seen revenue climb rapidly. It's gotta be doing something right.Elsewhere, Bilt Rewards is proof that fintech is still alive and kicking, and Kittl is another example of a European startup taking on a massive global market.And Bulk Exchange has raised $4.5 million, and I'm still shocked at how far Byju's has fallen.In Venture Capital Land, General Catalyst might buy an Indian venture capital firm — further evidence of just how critical India might prove in the coming years for tech companies. Also: some former Xerox investors have their own new fund to report.We'll be digging into the Brex situation on Friday, so stay tuned for more about fintech soon!For episode transcripts and more, he

Here's the rundown:The Q4 2023 earnings cycle will kick off this week with names like Intel and Visa reporting results. The largest tech companies will start to report next week.Crypto is not enjoying a post-ETF boom for reasons that are yet to be nailed down. Then again, when have crypto price movements ever made complete sense?ElevenLabs is the newest AI unicorn. With $80 million in fresh capital, the synthetic voice startup now has oodles of cash to try and run its market.Canva is big! Who knew?Elsewhere, Crunchbase News reports that cybersecurity fundraising fell again last year. Given the number of breaches in the market, that feels off, yeah?Developers and Apple Vision Pro are not seeing eye to eye. Perhaps Apple should work to rectify its developer relationships?And in closing, it turns out you can slow down TikTok.That's all for this morning, and we'll be back on Wednesday. Talk soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday

This week, Mary Ann Azevedo and Alex Wilhelm took to the mics to chew through funding rounds and trends galore. Enjoy, and don’t forget that our interview with Aileen Lee is here.Pomelo: $40 million more dollars for Latin American fintech? It’s the perfect Mary Ann story. Even better, we got growth data from the company to noodle on. It turns out you can raise up rounds in 2024!Tandem: Alex chose the Tandem Seed round for his deal of the week, even if he doesn’t want to use it. In short, couples of all types have different money management needs, making Tandem a potential hit.Briq: Mary Ann has been covering this company for some time, making its recent extension round well worth our time.AI and the enterprise: AI is going to change everything, AI is going to make your job irrelevant, AI is going to eat your lunch. So we hear. The enterprise, however, is singing a slightly different tune.Valuations, and their potential recovery: Sadly it doesn’t seem too likely that we are about to see a massive rebound in st

This is our interview show, where we sit down with interesting, knowledgeable folks and dive deep into their favorite topics. This time around, we invited Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee to chat through her massive new article concerning the unicorn world. If you didn’t know, it was Lee who initially coined the term “unicorn” in a TechCrunch article back in 2013.Lee talked us through the data and taught us all sorts of new terms. You can sort of understand what one means when they say “unicorpse” or “zombiecorn,” but apparently there are even more exotic unicorn forms out there. We even wound up comparing venture capital returns to peaches in a bucket of piss (her words, not ours!).We also talked about where unicorns are based today (19% in New York, for example), and why seed rounds are getting bigger. But really, you should read her post while you listen so you can have all the context while we chew through the numbers!And for those of you who are here for the answer to our question, “How are Fortune 500 compan

Here’s what we got into this morning:Vertice raises $25M: The bet here is that companies are willing to pay to have another company, Vertice in this case, to help them find savings in their existing software and cloud spend.Electra snags $330M: Charging EVs is big business, and Electra is wagering that building out its own charging network will pay dividends for a long time into the future.Build a Rocket Boy collects $110M: This is a big round for a company with unlaunched gaming titles. That said, it must have a few super-cool things cooking to raise that kinda of cash in today’s market.We also looked at rounds from Onera, Weavix, Long Story Short, and Xyte. There’s a lot going on!Thomvest raises new fund: Another day, another new fund, that’s the $250 million Thomvest story.We closed with what could be good news for African startups. And with that, we’ll see you back here bright and early on Friday!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday,

Here's what we got into:Stocks are down around the world to start a week that only features a single key earnings report, TSMC this Thursday. Next week really starts the tech reporting deluge, so get ready.In crypto, bitcoin's price failed to pump after its ETF products launched, which surprised some. Also surprising was the value jump that the Ethereum blockchain offers. Buy the rumor, sell the news? (Elsewhere, a crypto exchange raised around $100 million. In 2024! Who would have expected that!)Uber is killing Drizly: You can still get booze delivered to your house, but Axios notes that the $1.1 billion acquisition by Uber has run its course. Pour one out.On the deal front, Spot Technologies raised $2 million, while TechCrunch reports that Kuda raised $20 million last year at a flat valuation. That's pretty solid a result for a fintech startup that last raised in 2021.To close out, Apple is the world's smartphone king and has found a way to sell its Watch product sans legal issues, while Microsoft is very b