Equity

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Cataclysms are a growth industry May 26, 2021

Show notes

For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha dug into Danny's latest mega-project: A long, fascinating, and deeply-reported series into the world of disaster tech. It's all about the market, startups, and their backers, so it was perfect fare for our Wednesday episode, in which we dive deep into a single topic.

Part 1: The most disastrous sales cycle in the world

Part 2: Data was the new oil, until the oil caught fire

Part 3: When the Earth is gone, at least the internet will still be working

Part 4: The human-focused startups of the hellfire

We were super curious why Danny had picked disaster tech to niche into, as we hadn't heard that much about it, frankly. But past the fact that it's a world where sales cycles can last as long as House Congressional tenures, there was quite a lot to get into:

Consumer: Dorothy wants to to provide bridge loans to folks who get rekt by a hurricane. As government, and insurance money can take ages to arrive, the startup could be onto something. and Perimeter wants to take data, and help folks actually know where to go when there is am emergency.
Data: Danny's deep dive into the world of data in the disaster space came with a provocative headline, but the market backs him up. In this space we took a look at Cornea, which just raised $15 million to help firefighters better understand conflagrations, and Gridware raised $5.3 million to install boxes on power lines. Very smart boxes, we should add.
Mental health: We end with a riff on how companies are preparing humans to better handle disaster before and after it strikes. Alto Neuroscience, which is a stealthy startup founded by Amit Etkin, is looking to solve PTSD with brain-wave data, while NeuroFlow uses polling, and savvy collabs with practitioners to monitor emerging symptoms. Psychedelic therapeutics also might have some opportunity to shine thanks to Osmind.

The series was fun to mine through, and expect Danny's byline to be all over the topic in the coming weeks. Talk soon, unless - actually especially, if - all of hell breaks loose!

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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Equity Monday: Crypto's awful weekend, Apple v. Epic, and funding rounds galore May 24, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

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 and myself here.

After a somewhat quiet weekend, things are kicking off in rapid-fire fashion this week. Here's what you need to know:

The cryptocurrency selloff that was in full-swing on Friday continued over the weekend. Though bitcoin and ether managed to recoup some of their losses since they set new local minima, the value of popular cryptos is vastly depressed compared to recent highs.
Looking ahead, it's the final day of arguments at the Epic Games vs. Apple trial. And we're seeing a smaller company try to crack some of the hold that a major tech incumbent enjoys over a huge piece of the digital economy. So, if you like startups, you might want to put aside your Apple fandom for a minute.
More than a few funding rounds are cracking off this morning, including neat rounds from African fintech Mono, India-and-UAE-based Zeta, Emitwise raising $3.2 million, and Aurora Solar raising $250 million.

With a busy funding market and a yet-busy IPO cycle, it should be yet another busy week. Strap in!

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LinkedIn is the reason Apple made the M1 chip May 21, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week was good fun not only because we had the whole team together to record, but also because we are still basking in the endless glory of our winning a Webby earlier this week. Frankly we are still shocked. But happy-shocked, like when you get a new toy and it is covered in static electricity.

Anyhoo, we had a packed show with much, much left on the floor as we tried to shoehorn the week into our time slot. Here's what we got into:

The world of connections: Fave raised $2.2 million to connect fandoms, Somewhere Good raised $3.75 million to build feedless micro-communities, and both Spokn ($4 million) and Spot ($5 million) are hoping to use the spoken word to connect companies and their staffs. Honestly we think that the overall connection-community world is super exciting.
Piano, one of those startups we actually have the luck of using, raised $88 million for analytics, subscription, and personalization tools. We get into why the round makes sense, and why one investor stood out more than the others.
Corporate media: Coinbase is building out a media-ish org (Alex wrote about it here on his personal blog; Scrawler.co has more on the matter), and with TheSkimm hoping to find a corporate home and The Hustle doing the same, we had to dig into the matter. Our take is that content marketing is a response to expensive social advertising. And that it's fine. And that it is not news.
Shoutout Forbes and its new union effort. Well done.
Uptrust raised $2M, which let us talk about the venture-sized opportunity in fighting the billions of dollars wasted on useless mass incarceration.
And then we chatted about the public markets. Monday.com's IPO is filed, Marqeta's IPO is filed, Squarespace's direct listing is done, and more. It's hectic out there for late-stage startups.

The show flew by, much like our days recently, simply because it was so fun and jam-packed with news. And we got to make jokes about our listeners and Monday.com PR timing, so what else could we ask for? Talk soon!

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What has four wheels and loses money? May 19, 2021

Show notes

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic and go deep. This time Natasha and Alex corralled TechCrunch transportation editor Kirsten Korosec to talk to us about the endless parade of EV SPACs, and more. Before we get into the show notes, you can follow Equity on Twitter here.

https://twitter.com/kirstenkorosec/status/1394726967203667969

And, because we are proud, we won a Webby! Our show! How cool is that? Thank you for love listening, hate listening, all of it. We are so thankful.

Ok, here's what we talked about:

Why is every electric vehicle company going public via a SPAC, and why is there so much potential fraud in the space? Kirsten has some notes on the matter, but it boils down to money in both cases.
The Bird-SPAC deal in all its glory. You can read Alex and Kirsten's dive into the Bird investor deck here. We had questions like why was the shared scooter model ever considered viable, and, how did the company improve its economics during a pandemic? The SPAC world never, ever disappoints.
Of course, we couldn't resist talking about the scooter barrage of news from years ago and how things have changed since.
We end with her latest scoop, a series of exits at Waymo, and what that means for the future of the autonomous vehicle company. Plus, we didn't get to make a joke about it in the show but let's just say: Waymo has a waymore to go before it has driverless tech all over the streets.
And one more thing: Kirsten gives a look at some of the speakers at our upcoming mobility event. Snag tickets here, and subscribe to her newsletter, The Station, for all things mobility every week.

And that's that! We are back with our regular weekly news rundown Friday morning. Chat you all then!

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Equity Monday: Elon Musk Elon Musk's the crypto markets, while Indian startups raise huge rounds May 17, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

There was lots to get through today, so, in order, here's the rundown:

Early-stage founders can still apply for the impending Disrupt Battlefield even. You can sign up here if that's you. It's going to be a lot of fun tbh.
From the weekend: San Francisco real estate is a mess; Twitter Blue is coming and I am hype about it; Elon Musk roiled crypto markets by being himself, which doesn't speak too highly of the asset class.
AT&T is getting out of the TV game to some degree, selling media assets to help pay down debt. Just like Verizon did by selling TechCrunch and family to Apollo.
We also chatted about two Indian mega-rounds: Pine Labs raising $285 million and Moglix raising $120 million.
From the early-stage front, two rounds this morning for your pleasure: Telda's super-cool pre-seed round, and recent Y Combinator-grad Houm's latest investment, which explains why the accelerator program is still so popular.
Extra Crunch Live this week is Shaun Maguire (Sequoia) + Samir Vasavada (Vise) on Wednesday, May 19th, at 11:30AM PST / 2:30PM EST.

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Hundreds of SPACs waiting in the woods May 14, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

The fully-vaxxed and officially fully-immune took over the podcast this week, with Natasha and Danny co-hosting the show while the inimitable Alex is out from Shot #2. Grace and Chris, as always, were behind the scenes making sure we sound pretty and don't fall down too many punny board game rabbit holes after vacation.

Here's the rundown of what we got into:

- Crypto crashed - thanks to either Elon or the guy who created Ethereum and then donated some to relief efforts for COVID-19. We debated how signal gets lost and rediscovered and lost again in this news cycle, and what that means for anyone in tech trying to get a pulse of. what's actually happening.
- One symptom of market craze and disconnected booms? A startup named Caplight that wants more people to buy and sell short positions on private startups.
- We then pivoted into the last bit of our 'The World Is Melting' section to talk about home ownership and the slow stink of real estate stocks right now. Ontop of that, Better.com, a digital mortgage lender, decided to SPAC after reportedly tabling an IPO.
- A mention of SPACs obviously opened up a can of worms, or should I say, oasis of woods.
- The world might be melting, but Softbank could be having the last word. The Japanese conglomerate shut us up with its recent profits - proving Danny's point in an old EC piece (use code EQUITY for a discount).
- We switched gears and talked about a neat new $20 million fund coming out of the Midwest, Sixty8 Capital, and its plan to invest in underrepresented founders.
- The show ended as chaotically focused as it began with a round robin of the most interesting funding rounds of the last week, not limited to but including Blind's $37 million raise, The Last Gameboard's $4 million check, Just Women's Sports, and Morressier's $18 million Series A.

And that's where we break! Follow the podcast on Twitter, be kind to your humans, and be the kindest to yourself. Back sooner than you can raise a $25 million pre-seed round for an audio app for Dogecoin lovers.

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Duolingo swipes Tinder in a Clash Royale May 12, 2021

Show notes

For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Danny unpacked Natasha's latest project: The Duolingo EC-1. The 12,000 word four-part series was published last week and is worth a read. But, until you get to it, enjoy our podcast that doubles-clicks into its most interesting bits.

[caption id="attachment_2146587" align="aligncenter" width="482"]

Duo, Duolingo's mascot, flying around. Image Credits: Duolingo [/caption]

Here's how it went, after we got our morning allergy banter out of the way:

What's an EC-1? A TechCrunch-style deep-dive into one of the startup world's most promising, and interesting companies.
What's with the flying vermin up above? That's Duolingo's mascot. Which is a combination of hypercutness and modest menace. (You will have fun learning a language. Or the owl will visit.)
Why did we write about Duolingo? No, it wasn't only because Duolingo is edtech. Natasha dug into the company's product-led growth mode, and its views on gamification, which were fascinating.
What's up with today's show name? As it turns out, Duolingo has a Tinder angle. In fact, Duolingo leaned on some of the biggest companies out there when it came to design and monetization.
And as with all edtech companies, we talked monetization and outcomes!

The Duolingo EC-1 comprises four main articles numbering 12,200 words and a reading time of 48 minutes. Here’s what’s in store:

Part 1: Origin story “How a bot-fighting test turned into edtech’s most iconic brand, Duolingo” (3,300 words/13 minutes) — looks at how Guatemalan immigrant entrepreneur Luis von Ahn pivoted from fighting bot attacks on login screens with squiggly text to building one of edtech’s great success stories.
Part 2: Product-led growth strategy “The product-led growth behind edtech’s most downloaded app” (3,000 words/12 minutes) — analyzes the tactics and tradeoffs that an edtech company has to evaluate as it grows from thousands to 500 million registered learners.
Part 3: Monetization “How Duolingo became fluent in monetization” (2,800 words/11 minutes) — examines how Duolingo experimented with a variety of different business models to match its unique community, and why it chose subscription in the end.
Part 4: New initiatives and future outlook “Duolingo can’t teach you how to speak a language, but now it wants to try” (3,100 words/12 minutes) — explores how Duolingo is launching new business lines, their chances for success, and how the company is attempting to expand its main product from basic language fluency to mastery while adding speaking skills to the mix.

And of course, use code Extra Crunch "Equity" for a sweet, and perhaps the best, discount to access this story and all of our best stuff.

Until Friday!

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Equity Monday: Dogecoin is passé, but student notes are big business May 10, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This weekend was all about memecoins. And I am sorry about that. But Equity doesn't run the world, sadly, it merely notes what is going on:

Dogecoin dropped during Elon Musk's SNL appearance. Which was somewhat ironic. Also there's another memecoin that is skyrocketing.
Palantir, DoorDash, Airbnb, Alibaba will report earnings this week, amongst others.
Clubhouse is finally coming to Android. In the United States. By invite. So, if that's you, congrats, welcome to the app.
A major cyberattack and ransom situation in the United States is a data point, yet again, that we're woefully unprepared for cyber risk.
StuDocu raised $50 million which was cool, while Gojek raised another $300 million, which was the very opposite of surprising.
This week's Extra Crunch Live is going to be really good. I will see you there!

It is going to be a busy week! Already since we recorded this show there's more drama from Box, and more. Strap in!

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If 12% is the new 30%, 4% is the new 12% May 07, 2021

Show notes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

The whole team was aboard for this recording, with Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Danny, Alex, and Natasha on the mics. We had to cut more than we included this week, which should give you a good idea of how busy the startup and VC worlds are of late.

Make sure that you are following the podcast on Twitter, where we post all sorts of memes and cuts and, perhaps, the occasional video here and there. That aside, here's the rundown:

Investing legend David Swenson passed away.
Twitter is buying Scroll (neat, very cool) as part of its subscription push, but also killing Nuzzel in the process (bad, very uncool). Natasha and Danny fill us in on why Nuzzel will be missed. Alex has thoughts on why Twitter-Scroll is good.
Epic bought ArtStation and cut its marketplace take rate. This is the future, says Danny, who throws his own estimates in, too.
Sony and Discord are tying up after the Microsoft-Discord deal fell apart.
Edtech is doing the edtech thing in which it raises money and consolidates, as shown by Kahoot's latest scoop.
A friend of the pod, Jomayra Herrera, is joining Reach Capital as its first ever outside-partner hire.
Uber is teaming up with Arrival for ride-hailing designed electric vehicles. We're pretty bullish on the idea. Also Alex likes to say "microfactories."
IVF startups are raising venture capital, and this time its Alife Health that we're talking about.
WorkBoard raised again. Alex once again made us talk about OKR-focused startups. He needs to get a life, and so does the rest of the Equity team which fought to do the transition into this segment.
To end, we spoke about Leda Health, a new startup focused on at-home rape kits for sexual assault survivors. It's a controversial company, and we discuss critiques and opportunities,

And that's our show! No private equity deal can slow the Equity team down, so we'll see you Monday!

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The morality and efficacy of going public earlier May 05, 2021

Show notes

For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into the world of the IPO. Not just the numbers and the metrics and the calculations of valuations at diluted, and non-diluted share counts. No. We wanted to talk about the morality and efficacy of going public.

So to round out our conversation we enlisted Steve Cakebread, the CFO of Yext and Garth Mitchell, the CFO of Latch. Cakebread is known for being aboard the Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext's IPOs. Mitchell has sat on both sides of the table during the IPO process, and is currently helming the money equations as Latch approaches the public markets via a SPAC.

For more context, Yext, a company that first launched at a Techcrunch event back in 2009, provides data tooling and search software to businesses, while Latch builds software and hardware for rental-focused buildings. Yext is public. Latch will be in a few months.

Back to our topic, we asked Cakebread to talk about his thesis on why going public earlier than later can help a company's maturity process and can help provide greater returns to the general public. The CFO has written a rather good book about the IPO process more generally and what it means for a company's internal processes, but his morality notes especially stood out because its an argument far less noisy than the POP critics. Baked beans comes up, somehow!

We also asked Mitchell to talk about Latch's choice to go public, and what opportunities and challenges the SPAC route brings for the company. Of course, there's a SPAC joke in there (or two), but we get into broader "what's next" debates about if more companies will start to leave the private world, venture capital's role in this whole mess, and the financial lift of going to the public market.

Hope you enjoyed the show, and get excited: Equity is going to have more guests on from time to time, and we welcome any suggestions you want to throw at us.

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