Equity

Latest Episodes:

OpenAI board member Bret Taylor has a new AI startup Feb 14, 2024

Show notes

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. Meanwhile Antithesis raised $47 million for its software testing service.
Homebrew up, Foundry out: Homebrew is putting together an interesting new $50 million fund, while Foundry has announced that after its current, $500 million fund, it’s out of the game.

We also talked mushrooms — it’s PG-13, I promise — and Earlybird Health’s latest fund.

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 Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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Peak XV's AI field trips, and why we don't set self-driving cars on fire Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

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 Silicon Valley.

We are back on Wednesday morning at the latest!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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Adam Neumann's bid for WeWork's scraps Feb 09, 2024

Show notes

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.

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Fintech, edtech, and SaaS are not dead Feb 07, 2024

Show notes

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 to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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Yandex takes a big hit to get rid of Russian assets Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

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 deepfaked conference call.

We’ll be back on Wednesday morning!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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The feast and famine cycle of tech Feb 02, 2024

Show notes

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 transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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Why one founder thinks the Apple Vision Pro is going to make it Feb 01, 2024

Show notes

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.

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Meet the startup taking on Nvidia Jan 31, 2024

Show notes

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, want to go for a walk.

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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How a browser startup is taking on Google search Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

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.

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How can venture capital survive a three-year liquidity drop? Jan 27, 2024

Show notes

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.

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