This week on Equity, we discussed some big news that really matters: How Black founders are addressing the diversity gap in AI chatbots. We’ve all noticed how OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI chatbot tools struggle with cultural nuance, often coming up with answers that reflect a largely Euro-centric worldview. Now, a handful of Black-owned chatbots and ChatGPT versions – like Latimer.AI, ChatBlackGPT and Spark Plug – have cropped up to ensure Black POVs are included in the AI conversation, and tha...
Jun 17, 2024•13 min•Ep. 854
Welcome back to Friday Equity! In today’s episode Equity podcast , Mary Ann , Haje and Becca dug into three very different but all super interesting deals of the week. Haje wanted to discuss Raspberry Pi’s debut on the public market , and we all agreed that what this profitable company has managed to build – a tiny affordable computer that fits into the palm of your hand – is very neat. Mary Ann then wanted to talk about InScope, a fintech which just raised a $4.3 million seed round of funding l...
Jun 14, 2024•29 min•Ep. 853
Vanessa Larco , partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), believes that Generative AI’s impact on the world of SaaS could be huge. The investor joined Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to talk through, among other topics, her theories about how GenAI could alter the pricing models SaaS businesses use when charging customers. “I think where [SaaS] people aspire to get to is value-based pricing. This is really, really hard,” she said. But “I think it's a North Star for a lot of different SaaS products....
Jun 12, 2024•28 min•Ep. 852
Apple’s WWDC is just hours away, and we’re gearing up for big announcements on – you guessed it – AI. We're kicking off today’s episode of Equity with a list of what we can (and can't) expect from the highly anticipated developer conference. But that's not all we talked about this morning. Becca Szkutak also took a look at Byju’s alarming valuation drop . The Indian edtech giant, once valued at $22 billion, might now be worth nothing according to BlackRock. The news may not come as a surprise gi...
Jun 10, 2024•6 min•Ep. 851
As always, there was a lot happening in startup land this week, and the Equity team had so much fun breaking it down for you. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast , Mary Ann and Rebecca discussed Robinhood’s plans to buy European crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 millio n in cash and why they weren’t really surprised by the news. The duo then dug into not just one but two exciting health-care related deals. Rebecca wanted to riff on Sword Health’s innovative AI-powered virtual physi...
Jun 07, 2024•36 min•Ep. 850
Consumer startups have taken a hit when it comes to venture funding. But according to Eurie Kim , partner at Forerunner Ventures and founding member of All Raise, consumer is where it’s at. The investor joined Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to talk through the intricacies of the space. She pointed out that last year, just 7% of seed capital went to consumer startups. Yet, research shows that consumer company performance has outpaced enterprise, Kim contends. Forerunner itself has backed the likes of...
Jun 05, 2024•32 min•Ep. 849
Welcome to this week's Episode of Equity Monday. We're kicking off the week with a deep dive from this weekend into the demise of electric vehicle startup Fisker at the hands of its founders' whims. Fisker, which was founded by famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker, is on the brink of bankruptcy after only having delivered a few thousand electric Ocean SUVs. Then, Rebecca Bellan talked about X's new rules to allow adult content (as long as it's "consensually produced," whatever that means), and w...
Jun 03, 2024•13 min•Ep. 848
Welcome back to Equity Friday! In this week’s episode, Mary Ann , Becca Szkutak ,and Haje Kamps tackled three deals of the week: xAI, Elon Musk has once again proven that his name alone can shake up the investment world, raising a staggering $6 billion for his AI startup . Solutions by Text, The Dallas-based company, which has been bootstrapped for over a decade, secured $110 million in funding . And WeatherXM, which is a company bringing Web3 into the weather forecasting space that raised $7.7 ...
May 31, 2024•32 min•Ep. 847
It’s no secret that the bar for startups to land a Series A has risen, but has it risen too high? According to Jenny Fielding , a co-founder and Managing Partner at Everywhere Ventures, startups are facing what she calls “The Series A Chasm.” In a post on X this month, Fielding said, “there’s a huge backlog of seed stage companies with nice traction – just not $3m ARR + 30% MOM growth kinda traction.” The post sparked a conversation online, and Fielding joined Haje Kamps on Equity to talk throug...
May 29, 2024•25 min•Ep. 846
We’re kicking off the short week with news about Elon Musk, and no, it’s not about X or Tesla. Instead, we’re talking about Musk’s other other company, xAI. In a blog post this weekend, xAI announced it raised $6 billion in Series B funding , confirming earlier reports that the AI startup was looking to raise at a pre-money valuation of $18 billion. With Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Valor among its backers, it looks like Musk is taking steps to catch up and compete with the likes of ...
May 28, 2024•10 min•Ep. 845
Say hi to the new Equity crew! To kick off today's show, Mary Ann invited her new co-hosts - Becca Szkutak , Rebecca Bellan , and Haje Kamps - to introduce themselves and shared a bit more about what they do here at TC. The team then jumped right into the news, starting with Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet announcing she is leaving the company , just weeks after TechCrunch reporter Dominic Madori-Davis published an in-depth investigative article on what’s been going on behind the scenes at the accele...
May 24, 2024•29 min•Ep. 844
Today, we’re listening back to not one but two interviews from the other side of the globe, thanks to our new co-host Rebecca Bellan , who spent three years in Auckland, New Zealand. Late last year, Rebecca hopped across the Tasman to Australia to report on the startup scene in Australia, and came back to us with a temperature check on VC in the Antipodes. Rebecca spoke to two Aussie VCs: Dan Krasnostein from Square Peg and Gabrielle Munzer from Main Sequence . Rebecca and our guests dug into wh...
May 22, 2024•48 min•Ep. 843
Last week was a big one for AI news, and one thing that stood out to us was OpenAI's deal with Reddit . Per the terms of the deal, OpenAI will get to use content from Reddit like posts and replies to train its AI, and Reddit will get access to some unspecified AI tools. Reddit's stock soared 11% in extended trading following the news. That's not all we talked about on today's episode of Equity . This morning, Rebecca Bellan also walked us through a new social media platform called Maven that wan...
May 20, 2024•11 min•Ep. 842
This week, Mary Ann , Becca and Haje dug into three funding deals, proving that bigger is not always better (or more interesting). Becca wanted to talk about Spoor , an Oslo, Norway-based startup using AI to help wind farms mitigate its impact on birds (how cool is that?) while Haje wanted to discuss how fintech Layer is looking to take on QuickBooks in the SMB accounting space . Mary Ann, meanwhile, was excited to look into one Kentucky-based startup’s decision to raise $27.5 million in venture...
May 17, 2024•34 min•Ep. 841
For months, TechCrunch Senior Reporters Mary Ann Azevedo and Christine Hall have been following the story of Newchip's bankruptcy and its impact on founders and today on Equity , they're joined by Haje Kamps to dig deep into how the accelerator’s fall from grace threatened the cap tables of thousands of startups . In some cases, companies suddenly were so high risk to banks and investors that they had to shut down. The trio also discussed the broader accelerator landscape as a whole, considering...
May 15, 2024•23 min•Ep. 840
Last week was a busy one for some Apple Store employees. Over the weekend, workers at Apple’s Townson, Maryland store — the first Apple retail store to have a formally recognized union — voted to authorize a strike . While the date of the strike is still being determined, the union has been negotiating with Apple since January 2023 over work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling, and wages, among other issues. But that wasn't all we discussed on today’s episode of Equity . This morning, Rebecca...
May 13, 2024•12 min•Ep. 839
Finally, some good news! This week, we were pleasantly surprised to see that FTX victims would be getting some money back – even if it’s not as much as they might have hoped. That wasn’t all, though: Mary Ann Azevedo , Kirsten Korosec , and Alex Wilhelm had plenty else to talk about this week on Equity . We discussed why investors are drawn to the fact that Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increasingly digital space and also how one North Carolina startup ...
May 10, 2024•32 min•Ep. 838
Good news, crypto founders: Venture capital activity is picking up in your sector after falling to multi-year lows in late 2023. Put another way, venture folks appear more web3-bullish than before, even if recent tallies are far under highs seen in late 2021. But that was hardly the only news item we had to dig into on Equity this morning. Akamai is spending $450 million for API security firm Noname , a deal that TechCrunch previously reported was looking to get done at around $500 million. The ...
May 08, 2024•17 min•Ep. 837
News that Jack Dorsey is out at Bluesky caused a stir this weekend. After all, Dorsey is a former Twitter co-founder and CEO, so his investment of time into the rival social network carried weight. The decentralized social networking service said that it is looking for a new board member. But while we had to talk about Dorsey’s latest on Equity today, it was far from the only topic we got to chat about. Past a busy earnings week ahead of us, we also dug into the latest employment news concerning...
May 06, 2024•11 min•Ep. 836
Mary Ann Azevedo , Kirsten Korosec , and Alex Wilhelm had a lot to parse this week. We had notes on wallet-as-a-service’ startup Ansa's latest fundraise , and how Alex initially misunderstood its business model. Then Kirsten talked us through a simply massive deal in the self-driving space , while Alex wanted to riff on Beehiiv and its own funding round . $33 million is no small Series B in 2024! From there, we had a few minutes to discuss Anna Heim's recent reporting on disability tech and how ...
May 03, 2024•35 min•Ep. 835
Startups are not shying away from big projects. That’s my takeaway from news that The Browser Company’s Arc browser is now generally available for Windows users , just as Island raised a massive grip of capital for its enterprise-focused browser tool . It’s very encouraging to see startups going after core pieces of technology, and not just the apps that sit atop platforms. Of course, Chromium still reigns supreme, but unseating that horse might take a while. Elsewhere in startup-land this week ...
May 01, 2024•11 min•Ep. 834
We’re off to an AI-heavy start to the week. OpenAI has a new deal with the Financial Times that caught our eye. Sure, it’s another content licensing deal, but there appears to be a bit more in the tie-up than just content flowing one way, and money the other. On this early-week episode of Equity, we also dug into the xAI news that TechCrunch broke recently ; namely that Musk’s AI enterprise is not looking to raise $3 billion on a $15 billion valuation. No, it’s now looking for $6 billion at an $...
Apr 29, 2024•13 min•Ep. 833
Rubrik’s strong IPO pricing and warm reception by the public markets after its listing add more weight to the perspective that the public markets are not as closed to tech startups as some thought. If Rubrik’s result isn’t enough to break the logjam, well, maybe there’s something else going on. But there was a lot more that happened this week, which meant that the Equity crew had a pile of news to get through as always, with a little bit of our own mixed in. Happily it was all pretty darn intere...
Apr 26, 2024•27 min•Ep. 832
Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: A bill that would force a sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States passed the Senate . And the President is expected to sign it. Given that China has made noise that it will not allow a sale of the social media company that is headquartered in Singapore, but is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, it’s not looking good for TikTok in the States. But if that has you bummed out, don’t worry, we have l...
Apr 24, 2024•13 min•Ep. 831
Today we dug into the latest markets news, including upcoming earnings, IPOs, and what impact — if any — the recent bitcoin halving had on its value. But the money news did not stop there. We also had two new venture capital funds to discuss, including a new vehicle from Seraphim focused on space, and TLcom Capital’s new Africa-focused fund . From there, it was time to chat EVs and what impact recent price cuts are having on the value of EV companies. To close out, we dug into the emerging start...
Apr 22, 2024•14 min•Ep. 830
This week, Mary Ann talked to Hans Tung , managing partner of Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital ), which is focused on investing in the US as well as in Europe and Latin America. Long-time listeners may recall that Hans, whose portfolio includes the likes of Airbnb, StockX and Slack, joined Equity last year to focus on down rounds, a term often treated like an evil phrase. Today, we're digging into why Hans still believes in down rounds, the importance of long-term thinking and the current s...
Apr 20, 2024•26 min•Ep. 829
It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week. From layoffs to pricing changes and more, it was a week dyed deeply in Tesla colors so we had to chat through the latest. But that was just one element of what we got into on Equity this week. We also dug into Mary Ann’s reporting about Ramp’s latest round — and up valuation — that fit neatly next to Rippling’s own impending fundraise . If you are handling money, it’s a good time to ...
Apr 19, 2024•32 min•Ep. 828
What is worth $11 billion and wants to go to Mars to collect rocks? NASA’s mission to Mars to collect rocks that was expected to cost $11 billion and take ages. So, the U.S. space agency is throwing the doors open to get more input, and that means that startups are looking at an opportunity that is truly out of this world . But that’s not the only thing going on. Today’s Equity episode is focused on all things startups, which means we also got to chat through Two Chairs’ recent and massive Serie...
Apr 17, 2024•10 min•Ep. 827
It’s only Monday morning, but it already feels like Thursday given the sheer amount of news that’s flowing in. We have two critical headlines for you today: OpenAI is planning to open an office in Tokyo and launch a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language. The U.S., EU, and China are all racing for leadership in AI, and OpenAI’s foray into Japan could expand the list of leading blocs and nations. Tesla is cutting more than 10% of its total global workforce . CEO Elon Musk told employees in an ...
Apr 15, 2024•12 min•Ep. 826
Today, the Equity crew dug into Automattic buying Beeper for $125 million . Recall that the WordPress parent company bought Texts.com last year for $50 million . Elsewhere in deal-land, Proton bought Standard Notes , and we recently discussed the Wonderschool-Early Day purchase . More, please! In the Deals of the Week column, Mary Ann chose Payjoy’s massive new run rate , while Alex wanted to riff on the Proxima Fusion round that could help bring the next energy revolution a little bit closer to...
Apr 12, 2024•31 min•Ep. 825
