Equity

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Peering into the 'Series A chasm' with Everywhere Ventures' Jenny Fielding May 29, 2024

Show notes

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 through it all.

Looking beyond Fielding’s portfolio, we can see that the early stage storm has been brewing for quite some time. According to data from Crunchbase, seed companies have raised about $7 billion so far this year, which is down $1 billion year over year and down significantly in the later stages. Crunchbase has even taken to calling this a moment of “extended adolescence” for startups, with an increase in companies raising $5 million+ seed rounds instead of a Series A.

Of course, this meant we had to address the AI elephant in the room, and the $135 million seed round Musk’s xAI raised last December. Note that after 6 months, the company behind Grok has already announced a $6 billion Series B round. It was an interesting chat, so press play and join the conversation!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

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 Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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Musk’s xAI raises fresh capital while Synapse’s bankruptcy could impact millions May 28, 2024

Show notes

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 OpenAI, Microsoft and Alphabet.

The ongoing AI race was only the beginning of what we covered on today’s episode of Equity. This morning, Becca Szkutak dove deep into the collapse of Synapse, a banking-as-a-service company whose bankruptcy could impact an estimated 10 million end customers and 100 fintechs, including teen banking-focused Copper. While this is not the only troubling headline in the fintech space, as our co-host Mary Ann Azevedo put it, “it shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble.”

To wrap up this morning’s news segment, we also discussed a report from The Washington Post that election officials and researchers are considering a new approach to combating misinformation called “pre-bunking.” Companies like Google are testing it out in the lead up to the European Union election, but we remain skeptical about how successful the technique could be.

Haje closed out the show with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time examining Berlin-based Terra One’s deck. The startup just raised a cool $7.5 million to make sure Germany’s clean energy isn’t going to waste. Listen through to the end to hear how they made it happen!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

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The new Equity crew on a proposed AI 'kill switch' and why it's rough out there for VCs May 24, 2024

Show notes

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 accelerator in recent years. (You can listen to Dom talk more about it here).

As always, there was plenty more to uncover in the world of startups and venture. Mary Ann, Rebecca and Haje dug into two funding deals, one straddling the lines of crypto and social media and the other in the fintech space.

Rebecca wanted to talk about Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol that invites developers to build other apps on top of it. The startup raised a $150 million round, news that had the Equity team asking, “Is crypto back?” Mary Ann dug into immigrant banking platform Majority securing $20M in funding after notching an impressive $40 million in ARR as of April.

Last but not least, our trio riffed on the fact that a bunch of tech majors made commitments to the safe development of their AI models, including a potential “kill switch.” While we felt the news was mostly positive, we are also skeptical, too. The team also discussed the challenging environment for emerging fund managers, and our surprise at just how many of them there are.

That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back bright and early Tuesday morning (thanks to a U.S. holiday on Monday) with more tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's how startups can crack the US market, according to Australian VCs May 22, 2024

Show notes

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 why early stage funding is popping off in the region, the government's role in growing a startup ecosystem, fintech, climate tech, and what it’s like to compete and collaborate with Silicon Valley.

In addition to these conversations, Rebecca wrote a few deep dive stories from her time in Australia, including a look at its burgeoning climate tech scene and some of the people who are fighting to lift women up in the ecosystem. Rebecca also chatted with Canva — the SaaS darling of Australia — to learn how the company is embracing generative AI at its core and pursuing more B2B clients.

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maven takes the clout-chasing out of social media as Reddit teams up with OpenAI May 20, 2024

Show notes

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 wants to do away with likes, followers and clout-chasing in favor of more serendipitous internet exploration. Maven was co-founded by OpenAI alum Kenneth Stanley and is backed by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Speaking of Twitter, X.com is officially live as a platform. Annoyingly for Elon Musk, so is Twitter.com.

Bellan also covered some fresh cybersecurity consolidation. Israeli security firm CyberArk has purchased Venafi out from Thoma Bravo for $1.54 billion -- that's $1 billion in cash and the rest in shares.

Before you go, don't miss the latest Pitch Deck Teardown from Haje Kamps. In today's segment Haje digs deep on Berlin-based startup Goodcarbon's deck. The startup just raised a €5.25 million (around $5.5 million) seed round to make its mark on the big business of carbon credits, and its pitch deck does a great job at showing traction, but is not so great its team slide. Listen to the end to learn more!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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AI's busy week, and why the heck are so many VCs leaving their firms? May 17, 2024

Show notes

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 capital after being bootstrapped for six years and achieving profitability.

We then moved on to AI-land, and all the fascinating new features revealed by OpenAI and Google this past week. And of course, we had to riff on what all of that means for startups.

Last but not least, the trio examined the trend of venture capital investors leaving their firms to do other things – including starting their own new firms, or going back to old ones, in some cases. We're still wondering what could be behind all the moves, but it doesn't look like the trend is not going anywhere anytime soon.

That’s it for this week but never fear, we’ll be back bright and early Monday morning with your tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Newchip's bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for founders May 15, 2024

Show notes

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 what also recently took place at Techstars. It's a lively and hopefully helpful discussion you won't want to miss!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OpenAI gears up for a big announcement, and Apple Store workers authorize a strike May 13, 2024

Show notes

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 Szkutak also broke down what we can and can’t expect from OpenAI’s livestream event later today. On Friday, Sam Altman put a stop to rumors that the company will release a Google search competitor, but he did say OpenAI could announce a search feature within ChatGPT.

To close out, Haje took the reins with another Pitch Deck Teardown. This time, we’re highlighting Cloudsmith, which secured $15 million for its cloud platform. The startup's 2021 round was the largest Series A for a company from Northern Ireland since 2005, so clearly they got a thing or two right. Listen through to the end to find out how the company pulled it off!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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Acquisitions are heating up, and Mercury eyes the fintech crown May 10, 2024

Show notes

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 that started out by building drones to clean windows in tall buildings has also become a robotics company.

Kirsten helped us understand what was behind Motional’s decision to delay its commercial robotaxi plans amid restructuring, and the greater context around that.

We then dug into digital banking startup Mercury’s plans to branch out into software, and how it now fits into the increasingly crowded spend management landscape. And, we riffed on the fact that we covered three M&A deals this week (read about them here, here and here) and how refreshing that was considering M&A activity has been lighter than expected. (Spoiler alert: AI was involved in at least two of them).

Last but certainly not least, we close out the show with an announcement. After 7 amazing years, Alex's time with the podcast, and TechCrunch, is coming to a close. We're excited to see what he does next, but we are sure going to miss him dearly. Thank you for everything, Alex!

This is not, however, the end of Equity. We'll be back bright and early Monday morning with your tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

$450M for Noname, two billion-dollar rounds, and good news for crypto startups May 08, 2024

Show notes

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 transaction, notable for its size, is also worth considering given that Noname was valued at a unicorn price tag back in 2021.

Wiz is another name in the cybersecurity space that could do deals, thanks to a recent $1 billion fundraise. It intends to buy both wounded unicorns and hot, smaller startups to bolster its business. The company is now valued at $12 billion, which is a lot. (Wayve also raised north of $1 billion, but is focused on the self-driving space instead of security.)

We also saw Monzo snag $190 million more, bringing its full-year fundraising score to more than $600 million as TikTok fights a ban, and Oyo tries to raise new capital at a fraction of its prior worth.

And to close, Haje is bringing Pitch Deck Teardown to Equity! If you have not read the series — start here — you are in for a treat. We're kicking the new segment off with a look at NOQX's deck, what worked, what didn't, and what's next.

Chat Friday!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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