Equity

Here’s the show rundown:Teamshares: Here’s an interesting one. Teamshares has raised a lot of money and is buying a lot of SMBs. But that’s just the start. It also plans to allow employees of those companies to buy most of their stock over time, while serving up centralized fintech services to all its sub-companies. Who doesn’t love to chat about a new model?MoonPay’s new venture arm: Crypto payment infra company MoonPay is getting into the venture game, with a focus on crypto, gaming, and fintech. The union of those three is crypto games, of course, but we have two eyes fixed on what MoonPay decides to invest in. New crypto-thematic, or crypto-adjacent funds are rarer these days, making the MoonPay news exciting.Rent Butter and Kiki: Now that the zero interest rate period is over, and the experiment in building new iBuying and mortgage service startups has partially concluded, renting is hot again. And thus, so too are rental-focused startups.The IPO drought has lasted longer than you anticipated: Working of

This week, Alex spoke to Anu Hariharan, who’s previously worked with a16z, sits on Brex’s board, and more recently has been investing in later-stage companies at Y Combinator. She's also working on something new.Hariharan recently tweeted about how "great" founders were successfully guiding their companies towards cash flow positivity. Since that very interesting post, both Instacart (a former Y Combinator company) and Klaviyo have filed to go public. And both have super strong cash flows.Our chat could not have come at a better time. We dug into how early- and late-stage startups should approach growth and cash conservation (in her view), the future of venture as an asset class, and how healthy the unicorn herd really is. We had a blast recording this one! Enjoy!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,

As a small heads up, we had a bonus show over the weekend that is well worth your time! Alright, here’s what’s on the show this morning:Stocks are up around the world: A good note to start the week on, of course. In the meantime, the crypto market is still dragging. We’re back to minimal week-over-week price movements.Tech IPOs are back: After a drought that will be talked about for years, it’s raining tech IPOs again! Instacart and Klaviyo have filed their Form S-1s to go public, and we are busy digesting the numbers.On the Instacart front, read our first impressions here. In short, the company’s trailing performance is super solid, but the question is, how much it can scale total transaction volume in the future.We are still getting our boots on when it comes to Klaviyo, but the business seems strong. Is it the champion that software companies have waited for? We’ll have to see. More to come on the site later today.And Didi is selling part of its business to Xpeng. This is not the first time we’ve seen a ri

Why the extra edition? Because Battery Ventures dropped an interesting report on Gen-Z and we wanted to talk about it.Alex got Courtney Chow, a vice president at Battery and one of the report's authors to chat about it. You can read the report itself here.This is what we got into:The fracturing of culture: Gen-Z is large, and very diverse. The trend away from monolithic cultural primacy that began years ago has accelerated with the generation, making culture itself more personal, and more distinct. For startups, this means branding will become a different challenge if they want to reach this demographic slice.Everything is short-form video: Given massive usage of TikTok by Gen-Z and the popularity of other platforms that feature short-form video, we were curious how smaller companies can compete with incumbents that already have a Reels strategy, if you will.Ethical capitalism: One of the most interesting areas of the Battery report was its notes on how entrepreneurial Gen-Z is, and how diverse they are. Gen-

This is our Friday show, and we’re talking about the week’s biggest startup and tech news. Here's what Mary Ann, Alex and Kirsten Korosec got into:Nvidia blew the doors off with its earnings report. We talked through some of the high-level numbers and marveled at the company's growth. TechCrunch has more on the matter here.Ramp raises $300M: In this market, a multi-billion-dollar valuation is a win for a fintech, even if Ramp's new price tag is a bit lower than it was previously. So, while Ramp likely doesn't love that it raised a down-round, it does have fresh capital and is worth $5.8 billion. That's simply not that bad.Lex raised $2.75M: Alex covered AI-powered writing tool's Lex seed round. Kirsten got to give the app a try, and we all had nice things to say about the nascent startup.Northvolt is bringing its volts to North America: The global battery-building boom includes Swedish company Northvolt building a new facility in the United States. The company raised $1.2 billion from BlackRock.Better.com wen

This week, Mary Ann spoke with Mercedes Bent, Partner on the early stage team at Lightspeed Ventures and co-lead of Lightspeed’s LatAm region and angel fund. The pair chewed through a number of topics, including:How and why Mercedes started investing in Latin America, and why she thinks the region is more resilient than othersWhy we're early in the hype cycle when it comes to the intersection of AI and fintechWhy generative AI and fintech aren't always the best combination and much more.Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup! Talk to you then!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! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry

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, with real news from the crypto-front, and even a neat startup round to round it out!Stocks are up in most of the world, China apart. The Chinese economy is a real topic of conversation lately, mostly centered around concerns regarding credit appetite, debt levels, housing costs, and government activity.In the crypto-world, prices are sharply lower compared to a week ago, and Recur is no more.The partial retrenchment of Cruise in San Francisco is a bummer, but given how poor human drivers are here's hoping that progress doesn't slow on the self-driving front.IPOs are back? Kinda, maybe, and perhaps. The good news is that recent data from Instacart and Databricks indicate that we could see some filings soon.And to close out, Threads is coming to the desktop web while Enough put together a big round for mushroom-based proteins.For episode transcripts and more, head

This week Mary Ann and Alex were joined by our regular guest host Kirsten Korosec.Here's what the gang got into:FTX's former CEO SBF is heading to jail: We struggled to find much pity for the former celebrity executive.Better.com is going public: After much controversy Better.com's SPAC merger is a go. The deal is a fundraising mechanism by our understanding, though we had a bit of a tough time coming up with a bull case for the company in the present moment.Monday.com's growth: Alex has kept tabs on the earnings cycle as always, which led him to write rather kind things about Monday.com's most recent quarterly results. In short, the former startup is posting quick and cutting its losses and generating lots of cash. What's not to like?Vinfast went public, and investors are stoked: Another SPAC deal for the list today is the Vinfast debut. Vietnamese EV company Vinfast is now worth more than many major auto companies, despite falling revenues and massive unprofitability. So what, says the market.The IRA turns

This week, Alex had Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates on the show to talk about the SaaS market journey since his company  went public in late 2021, which happened to be right before investor sentiment changed.After a successful IPO, Amplitude warned analysts and investors alike in early 2022 that it was seeing some macroeconomic pressure, which led to its stock being sharply repriced. (That happened to most companies eventually, to be fair.)Since then, the digital analytics company has shaken up its organizational structure, launched new AI products, and has continued to grow while becoming cash flow positive. All that made Skates the perfect person to talk about:The current state of the business software buyer, and when Skates expects demand for digital goods and services to improve.When to charge for AI products, and when not to; also, the power of data moats in AI, and how they may be more durable than they are in other areas of SaaS.How to know when you have to cut staff.And, critically, how much Baldur's Gat

Here’s the rundown from this morning:Worries about the Chinese economy dragged down Asian shares this morning; the equity picture was more mixed in Europe and the United States. Meanwhile, why is crypto so slow lately? What happened to price volatility?On the earnings front, we're looking ahead to Monday.com, Getty, Cisco, Bill.com and Palo Alto Networks this week.News that Anthropic is raising another $100 million got us talking about a few other AI rounds that are in the pipeline; the gist is that there is a lot of money flowing around AI startup-land these days.Indian electronics manufacturing is making real strides, Mastercard is buying some African fintech, and the better.com SPAC is a go.It's going to be yet another busy week, so strap in and let's go!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 sho

This week Mary Ann and Alex got into a mix of growth stories, and some less-than-winsome on the startups that are not having the best 2023:How Lula went frugal and set itself up for a massive up-round in 2023: Mary Ann's recent reporting on Lula was perfect Equity material as it dealt with capital in motion, and a quickly-growing startup. Even more notably, Lula is in the insurtech space, part of the fintech world that has had an up-and-down few years.Weights & Biases raises $50M: Back in the day if a startup raised a big round, and then a smaller round afterwards, we would have worried a little. Today's venture market feels a little bit different. So, MLOps startup Weights & Biases has added $50 million more to its coffers, and we didn't fret too much on the round coming in light compared to its previous tranche. Summing our views, anything ML and AI is hot today, and Weights & Biases is well known. This round was not a shocker.BlueJeans folds: Remember when Verizon bought a Zoom competitor durin

This week, Dominic-Madori Davis came back on the show to chat with Mary Ann and Alex about two of her latest pieces:A lawsuit targeting a grant program that provided small checks to Black women small-business owners. The context here is that there's a movement in the United States to curtail programs that seek to provide access, or opportunity to underrepresented peoples in business and education. Given venture's somewhat embarrassing investment demographics, we struggled to understand the seeming animus behind the suit.Some countries are taking a different track, including the United Kingdom. Dom has more on that topic here.Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup! Talk to you then!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! Credits: Equity is produce

Here’s the rundown from this morning, which saw Alex catching up from a few days off last week:Earnings season is slowing down, while global stocks slip to start the week. Crypto is not doing too much to start the week, but do recall that Coinbase earnings came last week.Peak smartphone? In the wake of Apple earnings, questions linger regarding just what is ahead for smartphones and what could get that market moving again. Thankfully for Apple shareholders, the company has done yeoman’s work to build out a services and subscription business. Enough to compensate? Perhaps.A controversial privacy-Internet law in India passed.Triller’s IPO is going to be fun, though your humble podcast team have yet to fully dive into it.And, finally, how do you get a shareholder off your cap table while respecting their upside? Like this!We may be deep in Disrupt prep, but the show continues! We’ll see you Wednesday (and on day one, when Equity will kick off our major event in San Francisco)!For episode transcripts and more, he

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, Chain Reaction. Chain Reaction unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious.  Jacquelyn interviewed Stu Alderoty, chief legal officer of Ripple Labs. Stu spent most of his career working for traditional financial institutions in legal roles at firms like CIT Group, American Express and HSBC and left that world in 2019 to join Ripple.Ripple has been around since 2012, but has been making headlines lately for the recent federal court ruling that stated the XRP token, which is linked to Ripple, is not a security when sold to the general public but can be treated as a security for past XRP sales to institutional clients. We broke down the nitty gritty details of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York federal court ruling for Ripple and what it means for the company, XRP token and crypto ecosystem. We a

This week, Alex and Mary Ann had Sara Mauskopf on the show, the CEO and co-founder of the childcare marketplace, Winnie, and a former Postmates and Twitter denizen. Here’s what we got into:The progress of Winnie over time, and how it found its niche in the childcare marketThe state of care as a venture-backable category, and where startups can find the most impact and business resultsThe reported issues at Papa and the pressures of fundraising-driven growth in care-oriented marketsAnd, of course, why care work is not given its full due and value in our society.We had a blast with this one. Thank you for sticking with Equity for all these years. We’ll see you live at Disrupt!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! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo

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 higher around the world today, but the real story in equities is earnings. This week we are going to hear from AMD, Uber, Pinterest, Shopify, PayPal and Block, Apple and Amazon, Alibaba and Airbnb, Coinbase and Cloudflare. It’s a lot.In crypto-land, things are muted, but it appears that the Coinbase-SEC lawsuit had a bit more behind it than we first realized.Tiger is out of Flipkart, selling its remaining stake to Walmart for $1.4 billion. The American investor did well on its Flipkart investment.Fidelity has cut the value of its investment in Gupshup, but remarked its Reddit, Discord and X investments up some. So, the news is not all bad.Twitter’s rebrand is a go on the App Store and the social app has a new tagline that we alluded to in today’s episode title, while Shein and Temu fight it out for global domination of the fast-fashion market.Whew! What

We had our friend and colleague Kirsten Korosec on the podcast this week, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex got to stretch their legs a bit and talk things that move and beep and boop. Here's what we got into:Deals of the Week: AngelList bought Nova, taking the well-known venture service into the more traditional private equity realm; Waymo is focusing on self-driving cars instead of trucks, which has Mary Ann worried; and Alex wanted to talk about interest rates.On the subject of Earnings: Guess what? AI costs are here, AI revenues are coming as the ad market recovers. For big tech earnings thus far have generally gone well, though not perfectly.Do not miss GM news from the transit desk, of course!And we wrapped with some interesting analysis from the TechCrunch+ team on how funds of funds might be one way to get more LP capital into diverse venture funds.Whew, what a week y'all. It's hot and we are tired, but we had a blast recording this for you. Talk more Monday!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equi

This week, Alex had Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz on to chat about her upcoming book, Extremely Online, the history of online platforms, and the rise of creators.We've covered the creator economy a few times on the podcast over the years, but this addition to our historical coverage is more than worth inclusion. Here's what we got into:All the cool kids are pre-ordering Lorenz's book, which you can find here.Why online work has always been treated like a sideshow: While culture is often created -- or born -- online, there's a disconnect between historical centers of authority and influence, and where it's bubbling up today.The rise and fall of Vine: Vine's massive rise and later implosion is a technology story, a startup story, and the saga of how a platform's userbase and its leadership can often be on different pages. In a sense Vine was a warning of what we'd see later on when it came to platforms winding up at odds with the very folks driving attention their way.New formats, new platforms: It's

Here’s the rundown from this morning:Stocks are mixed around the world: Chinese equities sold off while American shares were set to rise at the open. A massive run of earnings this week should shake up the stock market for tech companies and their traditional brethren alike.In crypto-land, prices are back to where they were pre-XRP decision. I don't know what to make of that, but do know that Worldcoin is still a thing and is now actually out.Twitter's new brand: All hail X, I suppose. Musk's work to defenstrate what we all knew about Twitter, the company is being rebranded to X, which the company intends to be a superapp of sorts. Cool if it works, embarrassing if not.Spotify is finally raising prices, and all I can say is thank god. It was getting weird to get all the world's music for what felt like a song. I want to pay more making the price hike welcome, if still far smaller than it should be.SF really is the new AI hub.Ahead we have Disrupt, which is taking up more and more of my time. See you there!For

Here's what we got into today:Deals of the Week: Layoffs at Cameo, where fintech valuations are today and where they are going, and Egnyte's slow-burn path to an IPO.The end of VanMoof: Raising a lot of money doesn't necessitate a startup's success. Such is the case with VanMoof, which raised nine-figures and built and sold e-bikes. Now it is no more, and we have questions.CEO turnover: As the CEO of OnlyFans steps down, the gang dug into when a CEO can or should step down. Certainly some companies do best, for example, with long-term leadership by a founder. But not all.Generative AI and the writer's strike: It turns out that we're bigger South Park fans than we knew as a group, but that's not really the point. What matters is that a recently released 'AI-generated' episode of the show is driving a conversation today concerning how critical — or not — humans are to the creative process. Google is also busy here.And that's the end of the week! Equity is back on Monday! Chat soon!For episode transcripts and mo