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

August 14, 2023Equity Monday: Another $100M for AI, why not
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.
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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11 min
August 11, 2023Ladies and gentlemen: the dregs of the SPAC boom
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.
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
33 min
August 09, 2023Maybe we shouldn't sue away DEI in venture
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.
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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31 min
August 07, 2023Equity Monday: Have we reached peak smartphone?
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.
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
10 min
August 04, 2023Chain Reaction: Ripple’s chief legal officer talks SEC lawsuit, XRP ‘win’ and future regulation (w/ Stu Alderoty)
Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, Chain Reaction.
Chain Reaction unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious.
Jacquelyn interviewed Stu Alderoty, chief legal officer of Ripple Labs.
Stu spent most of his career working for traditional financial institutions in legal roles at firms like CIT Group, American Express and HSBC and left that world in 2019 to join Ripple.
Ripple has been around since 2012, but has been making headlines lately for the recent federal court ruling that stated the XRP token, which is linked to Ripple, is not a security when sold to the general public but can be treated as a security for past XRP sales to institutional clients.
We broke down the nitty gritty details of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York federal court ruling for Ripple and what it means for the company, XRP token and crypto ecosystem.
We also talked about:
Securities vs. commodities
Ripple’s SEC lawsuit
Future regulation and clarity
Advice for other startups
Need to catch up before you listen? Read these for a quick overview:
Federal court rules Ripple’s XRP token can be treated as a security… sometimes
Ripple’s XRP case ‘underscores the need for regulatory clarity’
Chain Reaction comes out every other Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.
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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24 min
August 02, 2023Yeah, but is that venture backable?
This week, Alex and Mary Ann had Sara Mauskopf on the show, the CEO and co-founder of the childcare marketplace, Winnie, and a former Postmates and Twitter denizen. Here’s what we got into:
The progress of Winnie over time, and how it found its niche in the childcare market
The state of care as a venture-backable category, and where startups can find the most impact and business results
The reported issues at Papa and the pressures of fundraising-driven growth in care-oriented markets
And, of course, why care work is not given its full due and value in our society.
We had a blast with this one. Thank you for sticking with Equity for all these years. We’ll see you live at Disrupt!
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
36 min
July 31, 2023Equity Monday: Twitter's rebrand is a go, and we're Blazing Our Collective Glory
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!
Stocks are higher around the world today, but the real story in equities is earnings. This week we are going to hear from AMD, Uber, Pinterest, Shopify, PayPal and Block, Apple and Amazon, Alibaba and Airbnb, Coinbase and Cloudflare. It’s a lot.
In crypto-land, things are muted, but it appears that the Coinbase-SEC lawsuit had a bit more behind it than we first realized.
Tiger is out of Flipkart, selling its remaining stake to Walmart for $1.4 billion. The American investor did well on its Flipkart investment.
Fidelity has cut the value of its investment in Gupshup, but remarked its Reddit, Discord and X investments up some. So, the news is not all bad.
Twitter’s rebrand is a go on the App Store and the social app has a new tagline that we alluded to in today’s episode title, while Shein and Temu fight it out for global domination of the fast-fashion market.
Whew! What a start to the week, yeah?
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
July 28, 2023It's always earnings season if you look hard enough
We had our friend and colleague Kirsten Korosec on the podcast this week, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex got to stretch their legs a bit and talk things that move and beep and boop. Here's what we got into:
Deals of the Week: AngelList bought Nova, taking the well-known venture service into the more traditional private equity realm; Waymo is focusing on self-driving cars instead of trucks, which has Mary Ann worried; and Alex wanted to talk about interest rates.
On the subject of Earnings: Guess what? AI costs are here, AI revenues are coming as the ad market recovers. For big tech earnings thus far have generally gone well, though not perfectly.
Do not miss GM news from the transit desk, of course!
And we wrapped with some interesting analysis from the TechCrunch+ team on how funds of funds might be one way to get more LP capital into diverse venture funds.
Whew, what a week y'all. It's hot and we are tired, but we had a blast recording this for you. Talk more 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
36 min
July 26, 2023What’s next for social media from someone who’s Extremely Online
This week, Alex had Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz on to chat about her upcoming book, Extremely Online, the history of online platforms, and the rise of creators.
We've covered the creator economy a few times on the podcast over the years, but this addition to our historical coverage is more than worth inclusion. Here's what we got into:
All the cool kids are pre-ordering Lorenz's book, which you can find here.
Why online work has always been treated like a sideshow: While culture is often created -- or born -- online, there's a disconnect between historical centers of authority and influence, and where it's bubbling up today.
The rise and fall of Vine: Vine's massive rise and later implosion is a technology story, a startup story, and the saga of how a platform's userbase and its leadership can often be on different pages. In a sense Vine was a warning of what we'd see later on when it came to platforms winding up at odds with the very folks driving attention their way.
New formats, new platforms: It's worth understanding the progression of online influence shifting from text (blogs) to pictures (social media) to video (TikTok, et al). When new formats have come to the fore, they often bring new platforms along with them, or vice versa. Alex wanted to know what might be next!
And we wrapped with quick notes about AI and Twitter, er X, whatever it's called. As always, we're back on Friday with your news rundown. Talk soon!
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
32 min
July 24, 2023Please re-xeet this podcast episode
Here’s the rundown from this morning:
Stocks are mixed around the world: Chinese equities sold off while American shares were set to rise at the open. A massive run of earnings this week should shake up the stock market for tech companies and their traditional brethren alike.
In crypto-land, prices are back to where they were pre-XRP decision. I don't know what to make of that, but do know that Worldcoin is still a thing and is now actually out.
Twitter's new brand: All hail X, I suppose. Musk's work to defenstrate what we all knew about Twitter, the company is being rebranded to X, which the company intends to be a superapp of sorts. Cool if it works, embarrassing if not.
Spotify is finally raising prices, and all I can say is thank god. It was getting weird to get all the world's music for what felt like a song. I want to pay more making the price hike welcome, if still far smaller than it should be.
SF really is the new AI hub.
Ahead we have Disrupt, which is taking up more and more of my time. 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
10 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…