Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week Kate and Alex broke the discussion into two main themes. The first dealt with early-stage companies, and the second, as you can imagine, later-stage affairs. Don't worry, we don't get to SoftBank for quite some time.

Sam Altman’s bet against Slack

The intersection of technology, startups, and venture capital touches everything now. That’s why Equity unpacks the numbers and nuance behind the headlines for entrepreneurs and enthusiasts alike.  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, TechCrunch reporters Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo keep you up-to-date on the world of business, technology, and venture capital.

Equity is ranked the No.2  podcast in the Top 100 Venture Capital All time leaderboard on Goodpods—As well as No.17 for the Top 100 Finance All time chart and No.32 for the Top 100 Business News All time chart.

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This week, Rubrik’s strong IPO pricing and warm reception by the public markets after its listing add more weight to the perspective that the public markets are not as closed to tech startups as some thought, but that's not all we had to cover this week. Mary Ann let us know about "send-now-pay-later" startup Pomelo's latest raise, and then we dove in to all things TikTok, its timeline and impact.

And to close, Early Stage. TechCrunch held its annual early-stage focused even this year, and it was a banger. Not to toot our own horn, but it was the second year in a row that our shindig in Boston was packed, useful, and lots of fun. The coffee was even good. At a tech conference. Alex had notes, so stay through to the end for that!

Good news for Rubrik, bad news for TikTok, and encouraging news for Early Stage startups

Today on Equity, we have som bad news for TikTok fans in the U.S.: A bill that would force a sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States passed the Senate. And the President is expected to sign it. Given that China has made noise that it will not allow a sale of the social media company that is headquartered in Singapore, but is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, it’s not looking good for TikTok in the States.

But if that has you bummed out, don’t worry, we have lots of pretty positive news to discuss as well. News like two AI startups in Europe that are making a bit of noise that caught our attention. There’s a lot more AI in Europe than just Mistral, of course.

And we had to discuss the latest from Perplexity AI, which just raised money and is shaking up its operating plans by raising even more money. It’s a good time to be an AI startup.

Not that that is the only thing going on. The Framework laptops folks just raised more capital, Pony.AI is considering a U.S. IPO, and Volition Capital is expanding.

The TikTok ban clears key hurdle while Perplexity AI continues to shake up search

Today we dug into the latest markets news, including upcoming earnings, IPOs, and what impact — if any — the recent bitcoin halving had on its value. But the money news did not stop there.

We also had two new venture capital funds to discuss, including a new vehicle from Seraphim focused on space, and TLcom Capital’s new Africa-focused fund. From there, it was time to chat EVs and what impact recent price cuts are having on the value of EV companies. To close out, we dug into the emerging startup cluster in vector databases and search.

Salesforce's silly deal dies as we keep our eyes on Ibotta and Rubrik

This week, Mary Ann talked to Hans Tung, managing partner of Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital), which is focused on investing in the US as well as in Europe, Israel and Latin America. 

Hans, whose portfolio includes the likes of Airbnb, StockX and Slack, discussed why he still believes in down rounds, the importance of long-term thinking and the current state of startup investment. We also dug into why Hans is so bullish on fintech and the sectors within fintech that especially have him psyched, the recent changes at his own firm, and why there have been so many personnel changes at VC firms as of late.

Notable Capital's Hans Tung on the state of VC and the upside to down rounds

It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week. From layoffs to pricing changes and more, it was a week dyed deeply in Tesla colors, so we had to chat through the latest.

But that was just one element of what we got into on Equity this week. We also dug into Mary Ann’s reporting about Ramp’s latest round — and up valuation — that fit neatly next to Rippling’s own impending fundraise. If you are handling money, it’s a good time to be a startup.

The team also dug into Cherub, which wants to connect investors and founders, Maven Ventures’ consumer investing push, and touched on what Mercury is up to. All told, we were fortunate to have Kirsten Korosec along with us this week given the sheer volume, and diversity of news to chew through.

Sam Altman’s bet against Slack

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