Equity

By TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, Theresa LoconsoloBusiness Entrepreneurship News Technology Business News

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Equity episodes

September 05, 2023Equity Tuesday: Arm's IPO won't resurrect private-market liquidity
Here's what Alex got into this morning:
Earnings Season Never Ends: Gitlab, Asana, UiPath, Docusign, Rent the Runway and others will report this week.
Crypto Down Bad: Prices for major cryptoassets are flat this morning, while the crypto venture picture is looking up to some degree.
Arm Sets IPO Range: Shares of Arm are expected to sell for $47 to $51 per share, according to the company. The question for investors is whether to value the company on its trailing results, or future profits.
More on the impact (or lack thereof) of Arm's upcoming debut can be found here.
The Catalyst Fund: The Africa-focused venture fund has reached a first close, and intends to invest in climate-focused startups on the continent.
Elon Musk Is Mad
And to close out, a new Chinese semiconductor fund is potentially coming, while India wrestles with net neutrality.
Don’t forget that Equity is opening this year’s Disrupt. We’ll see you there!
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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10 min
September 01, 2023What’s the opposite of a lean startup?
Here’s the show rundown:
Teamshares: Here’s an interesting one. Teamshares has raised a lot of money and is buying a lot of SMBs. But that’s just the start. It also plans to allow employees of those companies to buy most of their stock over time, while serving up centralized fintech services to all its sub-companies. Who doesn’t love to chat about a new model?
MoonPay’s new venture arm: Crypto payment infra company MoonPay is getting into the venture game, with a focus on crypto, gaming, and fintech. The union of those three is crypto games, of course, but we have two eyes fixed on what MoonPay decides to invest in. New crypto-thematic, or crypto-adjacent funds are rarer these days, making the MoonPay news exciting.
Rent Butter and Kiki: Now that the zero interest rate period is over, and the experiment in building new iBuying and mortgage service startups has partially concluded, renting is hot again. And thus, so too are rental-focused startups.
The IPO drought has lasted longer than you anticipated: Working off a Crunchbase dataset, Alex has notes on just how long we have been waiting for real tech IPOs. The good news? They are (partially) back!
What happens when you bring lean startup ideology into the AI world? A lot of experiments, it turns out.
And that is us until next week. Due to an American holiday, Equity will kick off on Tuesday next week instead of 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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32 min
August 30, 2023 What founders can escape venture's no-man's land?
This week, Alex spoke to Anu Hariharan, who’s previously worked with a16z, sits on Brex’s board, and more recently has been investing in later-stage companies at Y Combinator. She's also working on something new.
Hariharan recently tweeted about how "great" founders were successfully guiding their companies towards cash flow positivity. Since that very interesting post, both Instacart (a former Y Combinator company) and Klaviyo have filed to go public. And both have super strong cash flows.
Our chat could not have come at a better time. We dug into how early- and late-stage startups should approach growth and cash conservation (in her view), the future of venture as an asset class, and how healthy the unicorn herd really is. We had a blast recording this one! Enjoy!
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
37 min
August 28, 2023Equity Monday: IPOs are back and the Equity crew is feasting
As a small heads up, we had a bonus show over the weekend that is well worth your time! Alright, here’s what’s on the show this morning:
Stocks are up around the world: A good note to start the week on, of course. In the meantime, the crypto market is still dragging. We’re back to minimal week-over-week price movements.
Tech IPOs are back: After a drought that will be talked about for years, it’s raining tech IPOs again! Instacart and Klaviyo have filed their Form S-1s to go public, and we are busy digesting the numbers.
On the Instacart front, read our first impressions here. In short, the company’s trailing performance is super solid, but the question is, how much it can scale total transaction volume in the future.
We are still getting our boots on when it comes to Klaviyo, but the business seems strong. Is it the champion that software companies have waited for? We’ll have to see. More to come on the site later today.
And Didi is selling part of its business to Xpeng. This is not the first time we’ve seen a ride-hailing company divest non-core assets.
Don’t forget that Equity is opening this year’s Disrupt. We’ll see you there!
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9 min
August 26, 2023Gen-Z is rewriting the rules of the Internet, and here's how startups should respond
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
23 min
August 25, 2023Startups that are Ramp-ing up, and startups that are full of sh**
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.
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
38 min
August 23, 2023LatAm 'plays on hard mode' according to VC Mercedes Bent
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.
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 min
August 21, 2023Equity Monday: Robotaxis hit a speed bump and IPOs are back on the menu
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.
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9 min
August 18, 2023Some good news, some Better.com news
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.
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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
34 min
August 16, 2023The software market, AI moats, and when to go public with Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates
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.
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.

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

About Equity

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The intersection of technology, startups, and venture capital touches everything now. That’s why Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast, digs into the business of startups for entrepreneurs and…