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

April 13, 2022 Venture needs crypto more than crypto needs venture
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, given a parade of headlines and news that Fast shut down, Natasha and Alex brought on our new senior TechCrunch+ reporter Jacquelyn Melinek to ask: How is ‘Web3’ blowing up venture’s traditional playbook?
The question comes after Jacquelyn and Natasha looked into how crypto companies are altering the investing landscape for even the most disciplined VCs. Use code "EQUITY" for a sweet, sweet discount.
Here's an excerpt from that post:
The main difference between web3 cap tables and traditional startup cap tables is the structure of a company, because the way a C-corp would provide investors with equity would differ from the way a decentralized organization or DAO would, Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky said. Today, Celsius owns half of its CEL tokens and only sold investors tokens in its initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017 when the company first launched, he added.
“We don’t need to give tokens anymore,” he said. “If you can raise money through equity, you want them as equity investors because they’ll stick with the company for a long time. Sometimes when you give tokens they sell them quickly because it’s like easy money, it’s not like equity.”
In today's episode, we walked through fresh PitchBook data on crypto funding, a crash course in web3 vernacular, and what crypto cap tables are the loudest about.
Don’t forget that TechCrunch Early Stage is happening this Thursday, so snag some last minute tickets here. Natasha and Alex will be there recording a live episode and hopefully meeting some listeners in real life!
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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27 min
April 11, 2022Did we learn anything from the Elon-Twitter brouhaha?
Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.
This week was big-tech heavy, as the startup market had a slow start to the week. Sign of the times or one day fluke? We'll see in time, I suppose.
Here's what we got into on the show today:
Stocks are down today, and cryptos are doing even worse in recent days.
Elon Musk's flirtation with becoming a Twitter board member is over, the company said. Precisely why Musk backed out is not entirely clear, though the social media company's statement might hold some clues.
Shopify is splitting its stock, and changing up its corporate governance structure; crypto volumes are tanking in India following a legal change -- and Coinbase is struggling in the country; SailPoint is selling to private equity for $6.9 billion.
Turning the clock back, the Ellevest round is very cool.
And to close things out, NIO's production is on hold in China due to COVID issues. Such much for supply chain recovery.
This week is TechCrunch: Early Stage, which is going to be good fun. See you there!
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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8 min
April 08, 2022Startups in 2022 are indeed ‘harder, Better, Faster, stronger’
This was our live show week! Yes, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got together with Grace for our Friday recording on Thursday, meaning that we gathered on Hopin and Twitter Spaces to yammer through the week's news. It was a very busy week, with breaking news up to the minute before we recorded -- including this piece from the Better.com saga.
Square’s Better.com name Block is Butter-y smooth
Failure is a choose-your-own adventure for startups
Will rising interest rates decimate startup valuations?
Is today's market sad or sane?
So! What did we get into? A lot:
How Conceive is helping people manage the matter of infertility, Cottage raising $15 million to make ADUs more common, and how Tandem is taking on the hybrid work future.
Next up was Austin, Mary Ann's home turf. We held an event there this week that we touched on, but the main thrust of our chat circled around this piece.
From there it was time for the bad news -- including layoffs at Workrise, Better.com, and the implosion of Fast. The startup market is changing, and not every company is going to make it out the other end of 2022 it appears.
And we closed out with our take on all things Elon and Twitter, including this three views piece and why it's hard to build a single-person social network.
And with that, we are back Monday morning. Chat soon!
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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37 min
April 06, 2022 Failure is a choose-your-own adventure for startups
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, given a parade of headlines and news that Fast shut down, Natasha and Alex asked: What are we missing when we talk about startup failure?
The question comes after one of Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly columns, where she looked into the complexity of startup failure, fallacy of takedown stories, and importance of diversity in newsrooms. Here's an excerpt:
"There’s the argument that startup tensions are inevitable and common, so should we spotlight every time something bubbles to the surface, especially at the cost of an underrepresented founder who may just be doing their best? There’s also an argument that the business is messy, so we should report on the issues as we hear about them; and there’s the narrative of the female takedown story, in which people believe that women are targeted by the press more than men due to unreasonably high standards."
In today's episode we discussed our own definitions of failure past Theranos and WeWork, current examples of rising tensions, and what this means for early-stage startups and historically overlooked founders. There's been more layoffs recently, some notable valuation cuts, and the implosion of Fast to weigh against 2021's strident startup optimism. That makes this the perfect time to dig into the topic of failure, and how to cover it from a startup perspective.
Finally, as promised, here's a look at our artsy depictions of the startup failure cycle:
https://twitter.com/nmasc\_/status/1511365442249580548
Don't forget that Equity is live this Thursday, and you can you come hang out with us on Hopin (free, and you can ask questions) or Twitter Spaces (free, but you cannot ask questions) if you'd like! See you then!
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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28 min
April 04, 2022Equity Monday: Elon's Twitter stake and the fate of rival social networks
Every Monday, Grace and Alex scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.
After last weeks super startup-heavy show, we were back to our regular Monday grab-bag of news! Here's what we got into:
A strong start to the week from global stocks, and a general updraft to crypto prices in recent days.
Elon Musk buying a huge stake in Twitter, the popular American social network. The move comes after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted that Twitter was not allowing enough free discourse. Naturally we look forward to yet another idealist learning about content moderation, but we're also tracking Twitter rivals, making the situation both complex, and entertaining.
PrimeBlock is going public via a SPAC! The deck hadn't dropped in time for the show, but the initial release is here.
From the rest: Tesla deliveries were hot, lemon.markets raised $17 million, and Jumia is working with UPS.
Equity is live this week, so swing by to hang out if you want to this Thursday. Else we are back on a regular cadence!
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
April 01, 2022Instacart now delivers market trends
Welcome to our Friday show! Our regular co-host Natasha was off this time, so Mary Ann and Alex linked arms with our producer Grace to blast our way through the news of the week. As always, we had to pick and choose what seemed to matter the most.
Here's what we got into:
All Things Y Combinator: Here's our first set of favs, and our second. Here's a rundown of fintech companies from the batch, and our look at the Indian participants, and those hailing from Africa.
Instacart as trendsetter: The well-known grocery delivery company has lowered the price at which it will value employee equity comp, something that could become a trend. It seems so, with Instacart leading a potential vanguard of similar actions from other companies in time. Also we're thinking about how startup valuations could regain their shine.
Gaming: With the huge Axie Infinity hack making headlines, we talked about the matter and how other startups are tinkering with the play-to-earn market.
And we closed with the topic of social networks, what Elon Musk is up to, and how Facebook managed to confirm everyone's suspicions about its ethics.
Whew! What a week, y'all. Chat Monday!
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
March 30, 2022 Demo days definitely amplify a brand, but not the one you'd think
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, in light of Y Combinator's bi-annual demo day, Natasha and Alex asked about the utility of the parade of pitches. Our big question:
Are demo days outdated?
The question comes after Natasha’s latest Startups Weekly column, where she looked into the trend of everyone constantly trying to re-invent startup accelerators. We've seen everything from in-person events, to virtual pitch-a-thons, to record efforts, and more. Name it, it's been tried.
Today's show is a continuation of that conversation, specifically digging into how demo days served founders in the past, and how they amplify in the present. There's a good bit of factors that jolted things up, including the proliferation of accelerators, a boom in pre-seed funding and the pandemic forcing programming to go remote. We also ask for whom are demo days really for?
Listen in to hear what we landed on, disagreed with and picked for founders to focus on today.
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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21 min
March 28, 2022Gearing up for demo day
Every Monday, Grace and Alex and Kell scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.
This week had a theme. Which was startups. Lots and lots of startups. Here’s the rundown:
Markets are mixed this morning, with strong crypto trading results and big news from Tesla.
The weekend’s leading conversation in the tech and startup world was about this analysis regarding crypto upstarts not giving out board seats to investors. Call it peak founder-friendliness? It’s also a huge risk, as investors have taken board seats for a reason, historically. All the same, you gotta win those deals.
Y Combinator Demo Day is this week: We are going to see hundreds of startups make their pitch in rapid-fire fashion. Sure, many will have already raised capital, but the capitalist confab is still worth watching. I am looking for API-led startups and any hints about where DAOs are heading, personally.
Zepto raised, which TechCrunch covered here, and I had a few thoughts about.
The big tech landscape is quiet this week thus far, which means we can focus in on startups. See you at demo day tomorrow!

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
March 25, 2022It's a fintech world, and we're just living in it
It was a live recording this week, which was good fun. Our co-host Natasha was off, so Mary Ann and Alex teamed up with Grace to hammer our way through the news of the week live, with friends on Hopin, Twitter Spaces, and other locations on deck to hang out and ask questions.
Down a co-host or not, we tackled a whole slew of topics, including:
Katie Haun's new mega crypto fund, and why the blockchain world seems to be so capital hungry.
The simply bonkers pace at which Jeeves, a fintech startup, has accreted value in successive funding rounds.
Ramp's latest round brought up the question of fintech vs. the world, and how startup commentary can at times miss the mark slightly.
From there we pivoted to CEO changes at Kickstarter (here) and Cityblock Health (here). The changes were a jumping off point to the never-ending question of when startups should think about replacing their founders as CEOs.
And we closed with a look at Forge's neat SPAC launch, and what its positive debut could mean for unicorns more generally.
Also you can snag Mary Ann's fintech newsletter here, which is going to launch in short order. Get hype!
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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30 min
March 23, 2022The $2B dollar baby
We had an illness on the team, so instead of recording our usual Wednesday deep-dive, we reached into our recent archives and pulled the audio from a Twitter space we did the other week. In short, it's a Friday-style episode covering a host of topics, but just a little bit late, and on a different day.
The Equity team -- Natasha, Mary Ann, Maggie, Grace, and Alex -- were not about to cut back on feeding you the latest and greatest from the startup world. (Oh, and we have a live show on Thursday, see you there!)
What did we talk about? The following:
Venture capital rounds for WorkWhile ($13 million) and Alloy Automation ($20 million).
Mary Ann's reporting on Forage, focused around where its founders worked before building the fintech startup. Hint: Grocery delivery.
Then we dug into the changes at Clearco, and what happens when founder dynamics shift. And we used the story to chat a bit about how the growth focus amongst young tech companies is changing.
It was a very good time. Back soon, so chat then!
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
28 min

About Equity

From the publisher's feed

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…