Despite the fact that it is a holiday week here in the United States, tech news was, well, as nuts as it usually is. At this point anything else would be a shock. So what did we get to? All of this and more: Rebundle's incredibly neat startup idea, and funding round . We love a Midwest startup here on the show thanks to Alex's roots, which means that when we got to talk about banana fiber, hair extensions, venture capital, and St. Louis all at once, we were hype. Wheel reinvented itself again wi...
Jan 21, 2022•30 min•Ep. 465
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 dared to refresh perhaps the most common conversation in startups these days: the ubiquity, and resulting irrelevance, of unicorns. Our big question wasn't a simple one: Do we care that the meaning of unicorns has been hollowed out? The conversation ran the gamut, starting with information on unicorn creation rates, startup hit success and of course, funding ...
Jan 19, 2022•23 min•Ep. 464
This is our Monday (Tuesday) show, our short ramp into the week where we talk about the larger picture to get our feet wet. We're a day late due to an American holiday, and I can say later in the day with this thanks to my schedule. But, better late than never, here's what we got into: Yet another bad day for assets: Stocks around the world were broadly lower, with software shares taking yet another hit in the key US market. Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly $69 billion dolla...
Jan 18, 2022•7 min•Ep. 463
Happily this week, we did not talk about NFTs, and I don’t think that we even said “token” a single time. Instead, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got back to what we might consider the roots of Equity. Here’s what we got into: We started with a look at the recent Fertilis round . Fertilis is an Australian startup working to make the IVF process more reliable. We are big fans of the concept, though the startup has lots of work ahead of it before it moves the needle for couples hoping to conceive. ...
Jan 14, 2022•26 min•Ep. 462
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic and dive deep. This week Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex came together to talk about the changing nature of due diligence in the startup market. The chat was loosely centered around a piece that the three of us wrote as 2021 was coming to a close, but the conversation quickly broadened to include a host of factors that are impacting how startups fundraise, and build today. Mary Ann talked about the power of FOMO, and how that partic...
Jan 12, 2022•25 min•Ep. 461
This is our Monday show, our short ramp into the week. Yes, it's Monday again. No, you can't stay in bed. Things are already happening! Take-Two is buying Zynga : In a cash and stock deal worth around $12.7 billion (enterprise value), the transaction has delighted Zynga shareholders and bummed out Take-Two's own. Paytm is taking shots , as other 2021 IPOs slim down. The macro environment that startups exist in is about to change for the first time, from a monetary perspective. Pine Labs is looki...
Jan 10, 2022•9 min•Ep. 460
We're getting back up to full speed this week, so Mary Ann and Alex along with Grace behind the scenes took on our Friday show. Next week Natasha and Chris are back, and we'll do our regular three-show lineup. Today, however, despite a smaller team we had just as much as always go chew through: OpenSea's epic new fundraise: Alex did a little Fun Math on the company's trading volume and possible revenue totals . The gist is that OpenSea is a big business. But with NFTs as volatile as they are, ch...
Jan 07, 2022•30 min•Ep. 459
It's the new year! Yes, welcome to 2022 from the Equity team. We hope that our holiday episodes kept you entertained, and warm. But it's now back to work, so let's get into the news: Global stocks are generally higher today, while cryptos are mostly flat. In the last week, major cryptocurrencies have lost value. Twitter banned Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene for "repeated violations of [its] COVID-19 misinformation policy." India is investigating Apple's payment system for iOS . Tesla Q4 deliveries ...
Jan 03, 2022•10 min•Ep. 458
As is tradition on the show, we used the last episode of the year to make predictions about the next year. To continue an annual tradition, Grace and Chris joined Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex on the mic, a rare treat and one simply for your enjoyment. Expectedly, they had a lot to say. So what did we manifest for 2022? Here's a sampling: We're bullish on climate-focused startups: A notable theme from a number of us was the importance of climate startups, and how many types of startups are going...
Dec 31, 2021•33 min•Ep. 457
It's just about Christmas, which means you may be stuck with family at the moment. Regardless of what, if any, holidays you may celebrate, there's good chance that there are more people around you than normal. We're here to distract you from that. To ensure that you get respite from Actual Human Interaction, the Equity team has prepared a look-back at the year. Big numbers? Check. Big themes? You know it. Big moments of 'wait, that happened this year?!' Well, we'd have it no other way. Here's wh...
Dec 24, 2021•26 min•Ep. 456
To close out the year, Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex headed to the mic with Grace and Chris behind the scenes. We got to our favorite topics, and honestly, got a chance to just laugh our way through the final innings of the year. Here's what we got to: Factor raised a Seed round for up-chain logistics work , Phylagen is working to track airborne illness , and Notus wants to help you find the right influencer to buy . We also dove into the How Big Can Y Combinator Really Get discussion that Haje ...
Dec 17, 2021•26 min•Ep. 455
It finally happened, ladies and gentleman and our non-binary friends. The Holiday News Slowdown has arrived. Late, I might add, but still here at last. But that did not stop Grace and Alex from making you your weekly kickoff show! Welcome to the final Equity Monday of the year. Here's what we got into: The Indian PM's Twitter account was hacked , and used to promote bitcoin. Not a great look for the crypto world. The SenseTime IPO is on hold after the US government "added SenseTime Group Limited...
Dec 13, 2021•9 min•Ep. 454
Friends, we're almost there: the end of the year that felt like a decade. This week, Mary Ann , Natasha and Alex put aside their 2021 fatigue and talked through a week full of news - and candidly, tensions. As always, shout out to Grace and Chris for producing the show and making us sound a whole lot better. We got into the Lyft mafia, garbage, and why our local truckers are giving us creator economy vibes. Or more specifically: Kenya’s Pariti raised $2.85M led by Harlem Capital to develop start...
Dec 10, 2021•34 min•Ep. 453
Despite the advanced week, news is still coming in in hot and heavy, so strap in for today's busy episode: Cryptos have failed to recover from their weekend swoon, leading to most major crypto assets suffering from a double-digit decline in their value over the last week. Sensetime's Hong Kong IPO is set to raise less money than the AI company had hoped . BitMart got hacked , showing that even this deep into the crypto era we are still seeing embarrassing security lapses that deliver material co...
Dec 06, 2021•12 min•Ep. 452
It's Friday, which means the whole crew was aboard for this particular episode. We had Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Mary Ann , Natasha , and Alex on the mics. And, frankly, we needed the full team because the holidays aren't slowing any news down. First up? Square becoming Block , which we wanted to make fun of but mostly found to be reasonable given the company's disparate interests. From there we chatted about Inpathy's neat take on social networking, Massive's $11 million funding ro...
Dec 03, 2021•31 min•Ep. 451
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 episode when we niche down to a single topic, looking to expand our understanding of one particular technology trend or another. Today? We discussed if the era of founder-led companies is coming to a close, and if we have reached the peak of founder friendliness. The decision to abdicate the CEO role by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey got u...
Dec 01, 2021•25 min•Ep. 450
Well, so much for a relaxed post-holiday week on Monday. News broke this morning that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is stepping down from the company entirely . The company's CTO, Parag Agrawal , will be taking over at the helm. Saleforce exec Bret Taylor will take over as board chairman. So, Amanda and Natasha and Alex jumped into onto the mics -- and, ironically, a Twitter space -- to riff on all things Jack and future of Twitter. From the show: Crypto and the CTO, what can we read from the tea leav...
Nov 29, 2021•16 min•Ep. 449
With a holiday-impacted week behind us, we hope that you are ready for the next few weeks of busy news. Because starting in the back-half of December, the world is going to slow down dramatically. Make sure that you are following the show on Twitter , and let's get into it! No tech IPOs this week, though we will see earnings from select SaaS companies . That means that our information flow will slow over the next few days. India is irked at Starlink , telling the Elon Musk company to get its reg...
Nov 29, 2021•9 min•Ep. 448
Find the Found feed here: https://pod.link/found Not only is this week's guest the TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 Battlefield winner, but Nabiha Saklayen is also democratizing access to life-saving cell therapies by using—you guessed it—lasers. Nabiha is the co-founder and CEO of Cellino which is a company developing the tech to automate stem cell production that will lower the cost of cell therapies and increase the yield of viable cells. In this episode, Nabiha tells Jordan and Darrell how she built ...
Nov 26, 2021•49 min•Ep. 446
This is our Wednesday episode when we niche down to a single topic, looking to expand our understanding of one particular technology trend or another. And this week, it was all about the ConstitutionDAO. For those who weren't online last week, here's what you missed: a not-so-subtle group of strangers on the internet banded together to try to buy one of the remaining thirteen copies for the constitution. With crypto. The bold bid eventually fell short, but many saw it as an inspiring onramp into...
Nov 24, 2021•28 min•Ep. 447
Happy Monday everyone, and welcome to a holiday week here in the United States. Yes, we here in the good ol' States will be off the second half of this week. TechCrunch won't grind to a halt, but we will certainly slow down a little bit. But, that doesn't mean that we didn't have a lot to talk about this morning: Shares of Indian fintech giant Paytm fell further today, after a very disappointing first-days trading last Thursday . The company now has lot of ground to make up just to get back to z...
Nov 22, 2021•12 min•Ep. 445
Good news, everyone: Mary Ann is back! Yes, after a short absence we have our third Friday host back where she belongs. Namely right in front of a microphone, talking to us. And it was good to have her back, as we had a small mountain of news to talk through: OpenSea could be worth $10 billion : Right before we recorded, news broke that OpenSea could raise new capital at a far-greater valuation than it did earlier this year. While we had some jokes, we also did a little math on why OpenSea could...
Nov 19, 2021•30 min•Ep. 444
This is our Wednesday episode when we niche down to a single topic, looking to expand our understanding of one particular technology trend or another. This week? iBuying. Zillow made a decision to get out of the iBuying market, with huge costs hanging over its head and a grip of layoffs to manage. Natasha and Alex were curious what went wrong. So we brought along Ryan Lawler , one of TechCrunch+'s reporting team, who has covered the space for a chat. Ryan helped us use Opendoor earnings as a com...
Nov 17, 2021•24 min•Ep. 443
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 . I also tweet . Tesla shares are off further this morning in the wake of declines following stock sales by Elon Musk. The company retains its $1 trillion market cap, per Yahoo Finance data, but is at risk of losing a comma if it keeps sl...
Nov 15, 2021•11 min•Ep. 442
Friday afternoon the Equity team took to a Twitter Space to hit on a topic that we had to cut from our regular end-of-week show, namely crypto earnings and how Wall Street is digesting the results. And to bring in extra mental horsepower, Natasha and Alex lassoed new TechCruncher Anita Ramaswamy to help. We touched on Coinbase's Q3 financial results and what they tell us about trading incomes, and the company itself. Robinhood's own Q3 results were part of the chat as well, as they showed a simi...
Nov 13, 2021•17 min•Ep. 441
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 Friday show, a roundup of the week's biggest and most fascinating stories from startups, venture capital and technology. Natasha and Alex along with Grace and Chris had to cut and cut and cut to get the show to fit this week, so if we didn't get to your favorite story, we wanted to. We just ran out of space! Here's the rundown: Twitter Blue : Natasha...
Nov 12, 2021•30 min•Ep. 440
This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today we spoke about the revolution within agriculture otherwise known as vertical farming . Alex and Natasha spoke to Hardware editor Brian Heater , who recently wrote a TC-1 about Bowery Farming spanning over 11,000 words and topics such as the taste of sustainable turnips and produce sections at grocery stores. The core of his multi-part exploration, though, was built around a question: Can Bowery Farms bri...
Nov 10, 2021•32 min•Ep. 439
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 . I also tweet . The stock market wasn't incredibly dramatic this morning, from an index-viewpoint. Crytpos were slightly more exciting but only moderately. A host of earnings results this week should provide us with fireworks, however. An...
Nov 08, 2021•11 min•Ep. 438
Equity , a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. And have fun! This week our very own Mary Ann was off -- we send her our best, as she is a living saint -- so Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris got together to compile our news roundup. And oh boy was there a lot to corral. Up top this week, news from Indiegogo that the crowdfunding service is tightening up who gets to post projects on its platform. We view this as a general good, an...
Nov 05, 2021•31 min•Ep. 437
This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today? The issue of venture capital expectations in certain sectors where startups may not be the best fit. And what happens when they raise a mountain of capital. Natasha and Alex had former founder and present-day indie journalist Vincent Woo to come on the show with us. Why? Because he's written extensively about Lambda School, one of our subjects of the day. We started with Ro, and Natasha's excellent piec...
Nov 03, 2021•28 min•Ep. 436
