This week, Mary Ann is taking the reins with another favorite from the TechCrunch Disrupt stage. She sat down with Brex CEO and co-founder, Henrique Dubugras, and Anu Hariharan, YC’s managing director for continuity and an early Brex investor, to expose the context around this whirlwind of a year.

Brex's 2022 reality

The intersection of technology, startups, and venture capital touches everything now. That’s why Equity unpacks the numbers and nuance behind the headlines for entrepreneurs and enthusiasts alike.  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, TechCrunch reporters Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo keep you up-to-date on the world of business, technology, and venture capital.

Equity is ranked the No.2  podcast in the Top 100 Venture Capital All time leaderboard on Goodpods—As well as No.17 for the Top 100 Finance All time chart and No.32 for the Top 100 Business News All time chart.

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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 be a startup.

The team also dug into Cherub, which wants to connect investors and founders, Maven Ventures’ consumer investing push, and touched on what Mercury is up to. All told, we were fortunate to have Kirsten Korosec along with us this week given the sheer volume, and diversity of news to chew through.

Tesla’s busy week, and is fintech having a moment?

Today’s Equity episode is focused on all things startups, which means we got to chat through NASA's $11 billion opportunity for space startups, Two Chairs’ recent and massive Series C, Quilt’s heat pump work and fundraise, and several IPO updates. Here’s hoping that after Ibotta and Rubrik get out the door, more IPOs follow.

Also on the show today was a grip of venture capital news. Bay Bridge Ventures is raising a $200 million climate fund — it has lots of good company there, given rising LP interest in climatetech more generally — and a SpaceX alum is building a new VC firm that we covered.

To close, the massive, gobsmackingly big $7.2 billion worth of new funds from a16z. We dug into their breakdown on the podcast, but the short version is that it appears that the venture slowdown has not managed to impede the venture firm’s golden touch when it comes to fundraising. Hit play, let’s have some fun!

An $11B bonanza for space startups, and where is all that a16z money going?

Equity is back with two critical headlines this morning. First, OpenAI is going to Japan with plans for an office in Tokyo and a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language. Given that the US, the EU, and China are all racing for leadership in AI, OpenAI’s expansion into the Japanese market could expand the list of leading blocs and nations.

The second critical piece of news this morning comes from Tesla, which is cutting more than 10% of its total global staffing. The company told employees the cuts were due to role duplication, but with the company also cutting prices and seeing its growth ebb, demand concerns are being discussed as a partial driver for the cost cutting.

And there’s lots more going on: The upcoming Rubrik IPO is leaking early pricing ranges, ShareChat’s valuation is taking hits, and global smartphone sales are picking up. To work!

OpenAI plans new Tokyo office as Tesla layoffs arrive

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 reality.

And to close out, we looked at Anna Heim’s latest on Y Combinator’s evaporating number of participating startups from Latin America, which we posit could have something to do with fintech falling out of favor with investors — and fintech being the startup category that we most associated with Latin America founder activity.

Beeper acquired by Automattic, fintech's decline and YC's lack of LatAm founders

Today on Equity’s startup-focused Wednesday show, we dug into the Multiverse's acquisition of Searchlight, a deal that reminded us of the Wonderschool-Early Day transaction that we covered on the show a few weeks back. We also dug into the latest Guesty round, which was both large and interesting from a financial perspective, the Monad Labs transaction that led us to try and explain the difference between L1 and L2 blockchains, and Cyera’s recent megaround. Stick with us through the end to hear about a new venture capital fund targeting growth-rounds in Africa!

Brex's 2022 reality

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