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

July 19, 2021Equity Monday: Zoom buys Five9 as Robinhood sets IPO price range
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
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 and myself here.
It was a big damn morning, so we had to cut some stuff. Here's what we got into:
Stocks and cryptos are off this morning, as inflation and COVID-19 concerns rise.
Zoom is buying Five9. The deal is not super expensive, nor is it cheap. But given the huge percentage of Zoom's market cap that it represents, it's a serious wager from the video conferencing startup.
Carlyle is buying LiveU for around $400 million. TechCrunch broke this news. The deal shows that private equity interest in startups that aren't unicorns.
Robinhood dropped a new SEC filing this morning! That means we have a price range and valuation target to play with. More from TechCrunch on the matter shortly.
From India: A huge round for Lenskart, and a big Series A for GlobalBees.
And we covered this round from Nigeria. A smaller transaction, but one that could prove to be quite neat, we reckon.
Ok! Chat Wednesday!

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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7 min
July 16, 2021The price differential for engineers is declining
The whole crew was here this week, with Danny and Natasha and Alex together with Grace and Chris to sort through a very, very busy week. Yep, somehow it is Friday again which means it's time for our weekly news roundup.
Here's what we got to in our short window of time:
The Jianzhi Education IPO: We have questions. The Chinese edtech company is looking to list in the United States after Chinese regulators clamped down on Didi and other China-based, American public offerings. Bravery? Stupidity? Brilliance? It's hard to say, but we'll be watching.
Zomato's IPO and the Indian tech scene: As Zomato puts the final touches on its impending public offering, we chatted about the listing and what it may mean for the larger, red-hot Indian startup market.
The AI conversation: ZoomInfo bought Chorus.ai this week, which we had lots of say about especially in light of Gong's epic valuation. And Discord bought Sentropy, which also uses AI, albeit for a very different purpose. The great AI startup marketing push of years' past has finally led to a few neat exits.
Apple vs. Startups: That's the gist of our chat about the BNPL space and Apple's possible invasion of the hot startup market. In short, who's at risk? We have a few ideas.
The TechCrunch List is dead — long live commodity capital: We get into how a list that separates VCs by sector and stage makes no sense into today's lawless investing world.
Which brings us to a series of new funds. As Natasha pointed out, the scene for emerging fund managers has never looked more diverse.
Nooks raised a seed round, which turned us back into the world of virtual HQs.
And we closed with a quick digest of the latest morsels from the fake-meat startup smorgasbord, including what Gourmey is cooking, what Next Gen Foods is whipping up, and how Beyond Meat plans to keep its market cap sizzling.
Like we said, a busy week! Chat you all on Monday morning, early.
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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35 min
July 14, 2021Your funding round isn't special, but you might be
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha and Danny decided it was time to chat about funding rounds. Yep, everyone's favorite topic, just in time for the return of our wonderful producer Chris.
To help us navigate these particular waters, we had our friend and friendly competitor Alex Konrad on the show. Konrad is a senior editor over at Forbes, and part of the founding duo behind the Midas Touch newsletter. We like him - and his puppy!
With four of us around the Zoom table, here's what we got into:
An overview of the venture capital market in Q2. You can read TechCrunch's coverage of the global numbers here, and our further exploration of the US market here. TechCrunch has more coming on the matter, so stay tuned.
While the show includes the staggering statistics on the current funding frenzy, we soon broadened the conversation to why it all matters.
Consider this a peek into the reporter's notebook! We spoke about the supply and demand for covering funding rounds, the imbalance in who receives what money, and how an overall reader ad writer numbness to that $2 million pre-seed impacts the headlines.
Which landed us into our final section: how to stand out in the overall deluge of funding rounds. Here we all had a take, because all reporters find different things interesting. Here we answer questions about what metrics to pay attention to, how to be more than a number in your pitch, and the value of talking about topics other than your startup's success.
Thanks again to Alex K. for joining the show! Find him on Twitter,https://twitter.com/alexrkonrad and check out his work at Forbes.
Chat with everyone on Friday, a show that is already coming together to be a scorcher. A bit like the weather. Except in San Francisco. Natasha is cold!
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
July 12, 2021Equity Monday: Cybersecurity startups see deluge of capital as Microsoft looks to buy RiskIQ
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 and myself here.
It was a busy weekend for everyone, regardless of whether you were watching the technology, what Branson was up to, or the footie. I won't take sides on the match, but I will say that it was gripping unto the very end and a great example of sport. Now, the news:
Microsoft is said to be hunting up the purchase of RiskIQ, a cybersecurity firm. The deal is reported to be worth around $500 million.
And this weekend, Twitter began to conform with new regulations in India, moves that come after it lost some legal protections during a scrap with the Indian government.
China's tech market has been busy: News is out concerning ByteDance's IPO delay, Tencent is being forced to drop some music label exclusivity, and the Chinese government recently blocked a merger of streaming giants in the country.
There's big news out from Flipkart this morning, thanks to its recent and huge new funding round worth $3.6 billion.
And returning to the cybersecurity theme from earlier, startups in the sector are having a lovely time raising capital in recent months, it turns out.
And don't forget that earnings season is just around the corner. It's a pretty important cycle. Why? Because startup valuations are hot, and could take a hit if earnings come up short. And the IPO market is pretty freaking active; poor earnings from major tech companies could crimp exit-prices for mature startups.
Ok! Talk to you on Wednesday!
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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7 min
July 09, 2021Mmhmm, it’s the most ridiculous story we’ve ever heard
Danny and Alex were on deck this week, with Grace on the recording and edit. Natasha will be back with us starting next week. So, it was old times on the show with just two of our team to vamp on the news. And oh boy was there a lot of news to get into. Like, loads.
What's going on with Didi? Didi's woes have continued this week, with the company seeing its share price continue to fall. The Equity team's view is that the era of Chinese companies listing in the United States is over.
What's going on with facial recognition tech? With AnyVision raising a $235 million round, Danny and Alex tangled over the future of privacy, and what counts as good enough when it comes to keeping ourselves to ourselves.
Nextdoor is going public: Via a SPAC, mind, but the transaction had our tongues wagging about its history, growth, and how hard it can be to build a social network.
Dataminr buys WatchKeeper: In its first-ever acquisition, Dataminr bought a smaller company to help it better visualize the data it collects. It's a neat deal, and especially fun given taht Dataminr should go public sooner rather than later.
Planet and Satellogic are going public: One week, two satellite SPACs. You can read more about Planet here, and Satellogic here.
FabricNano and Cloverly raise capital: Satellites had us into the concept of climate change, so we also dug into recent funding rounds from FabricNano and Cloverly. It's beyond neat to see for-profit companies tackle our warming planet.
Two new venture capital funds: Acrylic has put together a $55 million fund for moonshot crypto work, while Renegade Partners has a $100 million fund for early-and-mid-stage generalist investments.
Mmhmm is big time: And then there was mmhmm. Which now has $100 million more, and some big plans. Our question is what it will do with the money. We'll have to wait and find out, we suppose.
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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36 min
July 07, 2021Tune in, SPAC on, drop LSD
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha and Danny decided that it was time to talk about drugs. No, not like drugs for fun, but instead drugs that you might have considered fun, but are now being redirected to help bolster your health.
Yep, that's our theme today. As it turns out, there are a number of startups and even nascently public companies that are pursing using drugs that we might consider recreational for serious health purposes. Which is neat, as our habit of decrying any drug that makes you feel better as immoral has likely held us back from learning quite a lot about them.
Venture capital investment in psychedelic start-ups, per CB Insights, rose from sub-$100 million results in 2018 and 2019 to $346 million last year.
Vice clauses, however, can pause a legitimate issue for investors who might want to cut a check in the space.
From the startup angle, NUE Life Health recently raised $3.3 million, and Osmind is up to some neat stuff regarding mental health.
From the public markets, Atai Life Sciences, Compass Pathways, and MindMed are the companies worth watching.
Frankly this was a fun one to record, even if the topic at hand is actually rather serious. Chat Friday 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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17 min
July 06, 2021Didi gets hit by Chinese government, and Pelo raises $150M
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This is Equity Tuesday, 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 and myself here.
What a busy weekend we missed while mostly hearing distant explosions and hugging our dogs close. Here's a sampling of what we tried to recap on the show:
Didi vs. China: The Chinese government's crackdown on Didi continued over the weekend, after announcing a cybersecurity review of the company on Friday. That decision blocked new user signups. Now Didi has had its app removed from pertinent app marketplaces. That's going to hit revenue. Shares of the company are sharply lower in pre-marketing trading here in the United States. The company went public last week.
Twitter vs. India: India's attempts to cow Twitter into not enacting its own content moderation policies continues. Now India has taken away legal protections from the well-known American company. It's not great news for India's growing technology sector, or the investors backing the upstarts.
Funding rounds: Lots of companies raised money, including Byrd, with $19 million in a Series B, Pleo with a huge $150 million unicorn round, and Obviously AI, which just extended its Seed round.
It's going to be a busy week! Chat 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.

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7 min
July 02, 2021California has no water and lots of liquidity
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
Danny, Natasha, and Alex were on-deck this week, with Grace on the recording and edit. But, if you want to hear more about Robinhood, this is not the episode for you. If you want to learn more about the consumer fintech company's IPO filing this is the episode you want. Basically, Robinhood filed after we had wrapped taping, so we had to do a special pod for the news.
So, this is the everything-but-Robinhood episode. And here's what's inside of it:
Startup and investor tensions at Bessemer and Hinge Health. Natasha has the latest.
Didi's IPO, and what's going on with Chinese IPOs more generally. Also SentinelOne's expensive and notable debut.
And then all things Duolingo, including TechCrunch's overview and more in-depth look.
From the venture capital side of things, Zipline raised $250 million, Daylight raised $5 million, Articulate raised $1.5 billion, Acceleprise rebranded to Forum Ventures, and Peanut put together a micro-fund.
We closed with Neeva, Brave, and other alternative search tools. Alex has a piece coming on the subject, once he gets around to finishing it.
A four-episode week! With only Grace handling production! She's amazing.
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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34 min
July 01, 2021Robinhood is going public and we're very excited
It's a sweltering day here in New York City, and that means Wall Street is on fire, and so is Robinhood, apparently. The popular stock trading app officially filed its Form S-1 with the SEC a few hours ago to go public, where it will trade under the ticker "HOOD."
The Equity crew has been yammering about Robinhood for years now, and we have been chomping on the bit to see those S-1 results for what feels like ages. Well, we finally got the numbers, we chomped that bit (or at least Alex and Danny did, since Natasha went on vacation about 15 minutes before the IPO hit the wires), and so here's a special Equity Shot to talk about all the highlights.
We talked about so much in an itsy-bitsy 15-minute episode: crazy revenue growth, crazy revenue concentration from two major sources, regulatory hurdles that the company has been clearing up, better financials with a bit of nuance on the company's Q1 finances, and the company's special plan for its IPO.
Wowza.
Here's what we got up to:
Historical growth and profitability.
Revenue mix and revenue concentration, along with constituent concerns.
The importance of options-related incomes for the company.
Dogecoin.
Why the company's adjusted income may help it assuage investors who have their eyes pop out of their skulls when they see its GAAP Q1 2021 results.
And a lot more. Of course, if you hate Robinhood, we will be back with our normally-scheduled Friday episode of Equity 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.

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17 min
June 30, 2021Dear economy, creators aren't fragile plants
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Natasha brought on Alexis Gay, a former operator at Patreon who now makes her living as comedian and podcast host, to talk about the creator economy - including our disdain for that horrid phrasing. You may know her from her cheeky, on point shorts about tech culture (and tech Twitter).
https://twitter.com/yayalexisgay/status/1369346460911734784
Gay gave us an honest look into the life of creator helper turned creator actual, admitting that her current job path wasn't possible in 2018. Somewhere, somehow, a VC in the distance heard that admittance as an opportunity to back a creator economy startup.
Here's what we got into:

Gay's experience at Patreon, and why she left. Alex had some thoughts on the theme. It appears that growing list of creator-focused tools could increase the vapor pressure of folks who write, talk, art, and otherwise create, regarding their present-day employment.

Why one size doesn't fit all when it comes to the diverse world of folks engaged in creative work. We also dipped our toes into the issue of indie creators needing to be CEOs as well as artists.

We chatted on Vibely, a startup that wants to make interactions with creators ~ multi-directional~ and what it says about scaling time.

We also got into what an average day looks like for a full-time creator-comedian-podcaster, why she's annoyed with how creators are discussed by founders and investors, and the tooling she hopes to see in the future.

And, well, we had to ask her if she's starting a rolling fund too.
All told, if you care about the economics of the creative world and want to add some nuance to your theories about it, it's a fun episode.
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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34 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…