Equity

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Gen-Z is rewriting the rules of the Internet, and here's how startups should respond Aug 26, 2023

Show notes

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-Z also has expectations around goods and services they purchase relating to the actions of the companies behind the sale. So, if you want to sell to Gen-Z, you might need to care about climate change, for example.

Now, that's officially it for us this week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and we'll catch up on Monday!

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 foundersand 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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Startups that are Ramp-ing up, and startups that are full of sh** Aug 25, 2023

Show notes

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 went public: Mary Ann interviewed the company's CEO ahead of its SPAC-led public market listing, which got panned.
In the transit world, Cruise got its wings clipped in San Francisco after an accident involving a fire truck. Alex is annoyed. Mary Ann is not.
This year's TechCrunch Battlefield 200 companies feature a lot of startups focused on excrement. We're not kidding.

That’s all from us this week. We are back Monday morning, chat then!

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

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LatAm 'plays on hard mode' according to VC Mercedes Bent Aug 23, 2023

Show notes

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 others
Why we're early in the hype cycle when it comes to the intersection of AI and fintech
Why 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.

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Equity Monday: Robotaxis hit a speed bump and IPOs are back on the menu Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

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 to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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Some good news, some Better.com news Aug 18, 2023

Show notes

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 one: The Inflation Reduction Act's impact on American manufacturing is big, and growing. Europe might have been irked to start, but it appears that fans of domestic production have found their champion.
The fundraising market: To close out the show we chatted about Becca's recent article on new venture funds raised by women, and a quick look at the pre-seed market for all the founders out there.

That's all from us this week. We are back Monday morning, chat then!

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

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The software market, AI moats, and when to go public with Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates Aug 16, 2023

Show notes

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 Gate 3 Skates has played so far.

Equity will be back with our news roundup Friday morning! We'll see you then!

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

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Equity Monday: Another $100M for AI, why not Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

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.

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Ladies and gentlemen: the dregs of the SPAC boom Aug 11, 2023

Show notes

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 during the pandemic? It seems that customers didn't, either.
Sendy shutters, Proterra reaches for bankruptcy help: While insurtech and MLOps are showing vigor, Kenyan logistics startup Sendy is over, and an EV startup that went public via a SPAC is trying to shake up its accounting so that it can keep going. Not the best news, frankly.
And we closed with the latest from WeWork (not so good) and its erstwhile bestie, SoftBank, which is getting busier with its checkbook again.

What a strange week and one that went by so quickly. More on Monday! Talk to you then!

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

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Maybe we shouldn't sue away DEI in venture Aug 09, 2023

Show notes

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.

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Equity Monday: Have we reached peak smartphone? Aug 07, 2023

Show notes

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, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

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