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

November 15, 2021Equity Monday: Startups rush to announce news before holiday slowdown
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. I also tweet.
Tesla shares are off further this morning in the wake of declines following stock sales by Elon Musk. The company retains its $1 trillion market cap, per Yahoo Finance data, but is at risk of losing a comma if it keeps slipping.
Elsewhere in Big Tech, Microsoft is making Windows worse, while bitcoin gets an upgrade
On the startup front, we took a look at Writer.com, Zoomo and Rsquared.
Up ahead, we have the Braze, Usertesting and Sweetgreen IPOs. Nubank and Paytm are also in the queue.
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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12 min
November 13, 2021 Wall Street still doesn't get crypto
Friday afternoon the Equity team took to a Twitter Space to hit on a topic that we had to cut from our regular end-of-week show, namely crypto earnings and how Wall Street is digesting the results. And to bring in extra mental horsepower, Natasha and Alex lassoed new TechCruncher Anita Ramaswamy to help.
We touched on Coinbase's Q3 financial results and what they tell us about trading incomes, and the company itself. Robinhood's own Q3 results were part of the chat as well, as they showed a similar pattern to what Coinbase disclosed.
More companies than just those two, newly-public entities are reporting crypto trading declines. Square did as well, after its bitcoin revenues slipped in Q3. Simply put, consumers traded less crypto in Q3 than they did in Q2, and a number of companies that were recently riding high on that particular volatility cycle had to deal with a down-cycle period.
We talked about what the results mean for the noisy world of crypto startups, many of which are looking to the highly-visible Coinbase as an indicator of what they can expect as they attempt to scale in a volatile market.
Equity is back 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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17 min
November 12, 2021Tiger's den of due diligence
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines! This is our Friday show, a roundup of the week's biggest and most fascinating stories from startups, venture capital and technology.
Natasha and Alex along with Grace and Chris had to cut and cut and cut to get the show to fit this week, so if we didn't get to your favorite story, we wanted to. We just ran out of space!
Here's the rundown:
Twitter Blue: Natasha is not sold, but Alex is all-in on Twitter's new subscription service. What does it include? What do we hope it adds? We have it all for you.
Seasoned raised $18.7 million for its frontline worker app and matching service, You.com raised $20 million to continue taking on Google's search hegemony, and Helsing.ai raised a huge pile of money for reasons that we like, even if the details of what it intends to do are still a little vague.
INDIAN EDTECH
Tiger Global's investing rush. Thanks to an act of journalism by our Twitter friend Sar Haribhakti, we had fresh perspective on just how the startup investing community is handling Tiger's race to win growth-stage investing. The Information has more, as does FT and Crunchbase News,
And then we were out of minutes! Don't worry, however, Equity is back Monday morning!
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
November 10, 2021Vertically-farmed wasabi arugula isn't a hypothetical
This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today we spoke about the revolution within agriculture otherwise known as vertical farming.
Alex and Natasha spoke to Hardware editor Brian Heater, who recently wrote a TC-1 about Bowery Farming spanning over 11,000 words and topics such as the taste of sustainable turnips and produce sections at grocery stores. The core of his multi-part exploration, though, was built around a question: Can Bowery Farms bring the newest and most innovative technologies to bear on civilization’s oldest and most optimized industry?
As a result, our episode went down a lot of tasty rabbit holes. We spoke about the current state of vertical farming, the challenges that come with commercialization and our struggling climate, and if your local dairy farm is actually thinking about adding a robot to their staff.
There was more to chew on, including the balance between sustainability and profit, how to think about carbon footprints, the commercialization of vertical farming today, and how some folks are spending $30 on a strawberry. We had lovely time and will have Brian back on the pod.
Here's the TC-1 if you're interested:
Bowery Farming is forcing us all to look up at the future of vertical agriculture (3,500 words/14 minutes) — explores the evolution of vertical farming, it’s expansion in Japan and how Bowery Farming was started to bring indoor farming to the masses in the United States.
Hacking lettuce for taste and profit (2,500 words/10 minutes) — evaluates how Bowery collects data from its farms in order to optimize flavor while also potentially expanding its produce line into new categories like strawberries and turnips.
Can LEDs ultimately replace the sun? (2,100 words/8 minutes) — investigates two of the most important questions about Bowery Farming: Can it develop a competitive moat with its technology (which it dubs BoweryOS) and just how much environmental benefit can the company derive from its farms?
The voracious fight for your salad bowl (3,000 words/12 minutes) — looks at the extremely competitive nature of the produce section at the grocery store and how Bowery intends to build a brand with consumers while finding a route to profitability.
The Equity team will be back Friday morning with our weekly roundup. Our hearts go out to Mary Ann who will return to us in due time, and our general ire is reserved for Danny. Because we are still smarting from his divorcing of us for Lux.
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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33 min
November 08, 2021Equity Monday: Elon Musk reinvents corporate governance
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. I also tweet.
The stock market wasn't incredibly dramatic this morning, from an index-viewpoint. Crytpos were slightly more exciting but only moderately. A host of earnings results this week should provide us with fireworks, however.
And on the subject of crypto regulation, news from Congress isn't great for fans of coins and chains. And the rising popularity of NFT games could put consumers in bad tax territory.
The SoftBank Vision Fund 1 posted poor results, harming SoftBank's earnings, and leading to the company promising a huge share buyback.
And Elon Musk made news not only for tweeting some sort of dick joke at an American Senator, but also for polling Twitter regarding whether or not he should sell 10% worth of Tesla shares. That's one way to do corporate governance, I suppose.
Matter Labs raised $50 million, while H2O.ai raised $100 million.
And weekend chat concerning this piece detailing Google's history with AMP underscores just how much trust is being lost between major American tech companies and their communities.
We are back Wednesday! Hugs!
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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12 min
November 05, 2021Three quarters of record-breaking funding for female founders is a win
Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. And have fun!
This week our very own Mary Ann was off -- we send her our best, as she is a living saint -- so Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris got together to compile our news roundup. And oh boy was there a lot to corral.
Up top this week, news from Indiegogo that the crowdfunding service is tightening up who gets to post projects on its platform. We view this as a general good, and one that could prove helpful to the long-term viability of crowdfunding.
From the funding round rodeo, we riffed on the musical and potentially exciting Mictic (which raised $2.5 million), female-health focused illumigyn and what it might do for care access (it raised $33 million), and Martie, which wants to prevent food waste and perhaps provide low-cost foodstuffs to folks in need ($3 million in fresh capital).
FEMALE FOUNDERS
VSC
And then we chatted for a minute on alternative investing. Namely what Aqua is building, and why Alex is writing columns on NFTs.
Hugs and love from the team, we will chat with you bright and early Monday morning!

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
November 03, 2021The inherent tensions within Venture capital
This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche down to a single topic. Today? The issue of venture capital expectations in certain sectors where startups may not be the best fit. And what happens when they raise a mountain of capital.
Natasha and Alex had former founder and present-day indie journalist Vincent Woo to come on the show with us. Why? Because he's written extensively about Lambda School, one of our subjects of the day.
We started with Ro, and Natasha's excellent piece on the matter: Employees detail rising tensions at Ro as healthcare unicorn struggles to grow beyond first win.
Next we chatted Lambda School, which has a well-documented history of raising venture capital and attracting controversy. Most recently, Woo published a piece about the coding bootcamp's misleading claims on job placement. The company is perhaps a cautionary tale of how venture-level growth can struggle in certain sectors. Education is hard and may not scale like software.
At the heart of conversation was a question: In this time of high valuations and easy access to large amounts of capital, how can VC incentives lead some startups into a cycle of pain? We didn't land on a single conclusion, and that was kind of the point of the episode. Venture capital isn't inherently bad or good, but the money can come with a list of demands (and pressures) that cause risk-taking founders to make mistakes. A recalibration is necessary, but, as we talk about every week, the "up and to the right" market will take its time getting there.
It was good fun to focus on a single topic, but we're back with our news roundup Friday 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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28 min
November 01, 2021Equity Monday: The beginning of the end of ‘996’
Today we had a goodly bag of things to dig into, including:
The FT finds that major social platforms are taking a bath thanks to Apple’s new privacy rules. But is that such a bad thing?
The Chinese labor standard of ‘996’ is losing its dominance in its domestic market.
The Dell-VMware spinoff has finally happened. At last.
Digital Currency Group raises $700 million, Mosaic Building Group raises $44 million, and When I Work locked down $200 million of its own.
Looking ahead, we have AllBirds and NerdWallet IPOs this week!
Sorry that the show was late! 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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10 min
October 29, 2021The new alchemy is turning gold to crypto
This week Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex (along with our amazing production team Grace, Chris, and Kell) took on a host of topics from the public and private markets alike. In our wheelhouse this week:
An IPO rush: Sure, IPOs are still not keeping up with unicorn births, but the current pace of public offerings has us nattering. Paytm is coming. Sweetgreen as well. NerdWallet and Backblaze to boot. It's a crowd!
Alchemy raised $250 million for its blockchain-infra work, reminding us that A16z has all of its eggs in the same ol' crypto basket.
Heart to Heart raised $0.75 million for audio-focused dating. And even though we're not the targeted customer base, we were excited about the founder and his big bet on intention.
Built by a student, Tasseled wants to help college students get their lives, and credits, together.
More on the great Sequoia business model shakeup, building from our comments earlier in the week. We dig into exit timings, and other potential impacts of the change.
And we got to riff on the Midwest startup-boom, which is a region near and dear to Alex's heart. And it turns out that Denver is not a Midwest city.
While we're sad about Danny's exit, it's also edifying to have our new crew in place for 2022. Expect nothing less than more Equity than ever.
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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29 min
October 27, 2021Divining the future of VC, saying goodbye to Danny
This is a special, if somewhat bittersweet episode. It marks the final official podcast with our own Danny Crichton, who is off to other pastures in short order. Danny stepped in when we lost a host a few years back, and has been both a staple and a pillar of the show since. We're going to miss the ever-loving heck out of him.
But the show must go on, so we spent this episode discussing issues core to our remit: The venture capital market, startups, and the interplay between each.
Natasha and Danny and Alex and Chris got together for this particular Wednesday edition of Equity, the part of the week when we niche down to a single topic and discuss it at length.
This time 'round we tackled the very small of whether today's pace of venture capital investment is sustainable, and whether the current structure of venture capital funds will survive. It was the right time to do so, given that:
Tiger is reloading with even more capital. Danny noted that its rising asset base is a good indicator of just where things are today.
Venture capital is at all-time highs. Natasha and Alex riffed through the numbers, noting just how crazy things have become.
And as we were collecting our notes, Sequoia announced (after Primack scooped them) that they are revolutionizing their firm into a new sort of vehicle.
We also discussed the unicorn traffic jam, which gave Alex a chance to jump atop his favorite hobby horse one more time.
With more money than ever bouncing around startup-land, the question of whether the sums, and their resulting valuations, make any sense is a conversation that we are not done with. But we hope that after this short podcast, you are at least up to speed.
Bon voyage, Danny. We love you. And a regular shoutout to the folks who have helped host Equity in the past: Kate Clark, Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley, and Connie Loizos. You are very much still in our hearts.
Here's the next few million downloads!

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…