Equity

Alex had a lot of ground to cover from the weekend, so let's get started. Here's the rundown: The global stock market is mixed today, if leaning positive. Some concerns about global banks appear to be settling. In contrast, things are quiet on the crypto front. Salesforce is getting a reprieve from certain activist pressure after it took a cleaver to its staffing. The Silicon Valley Bank crisis is...

What did Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex dive into? Here's the rundown: A quick update on TikTok: The CEO of the popular social media service went before Congress today. It was a pretty darn hostile meeting. Alex caught a chunk of it live, and also has a few thoughts on the matter. From there it was time for our 'deals of the week' section, which today included Duolingo's new music product, a new DA...

 Natasha interviewed one of venture's most iconic duos: Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein of Kapor Capital. The investors recently published a book, "Closing the Equity Gap: Creating Wealth and Fostering Justice in Startup Investing," connecting scrappy stories of entrepreneurs to their investment thesis to the returns that other venture capitalists are clamoring to land. In today's episode, we'r...

Alex is here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news and a little bit of the money that powers both. After a hectic few weeks, are we done with banking news? No, but there's some good news in the offing, at least. Banking stocks are whipsawing this morning, in the wake of the UBS-Credit Suisse deal, and First Republic's continued woes. The crypto markets h...

This week, Alex and Natasha took the mic to talk about the slowest news cycle we've had since the beginning of the grocery delivery wars and WeWork. Just kidding.  Here's what we got into: The M&A spree that includes updates from Qualtrics, Cvent, and Mint Mobile. We're happy to see some M&A, even if we'd rather see more startup deals and IPOs. GPT-4. GPT-4. GPT-4. What's in a name and more from t...

This week, Natasha interviewed Series CEO Brexton Pham, who has been building a full-stack enterprise platform for institutions and enterprises since March 2021. Brexton was pushed out of stealth this week in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank's crash, which of course was the main topic of our conversation. What else did you expect? Here's what we got into: How much trust do our banks deserve today,...

This is Alex and we are here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news and a little bit of the money that powers both. Given how bonkers the last few days have been, this is not a normal show. Sure, we're talking money up top, but I also dragooned Natasha into running us through her amazing reporting from over the weekend on all things SVB. (Please excuse th...

This week Mary Ann Azevedo, Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm gathered to riff through the week’s biggest startup and venture news: At the top of the show, we riffed about the situation at Silicon Valley Bank - which, of course, kicked off a little more after we wrapped our recording. So, more to come there. But we had other stories to get into: Deals of the Week: Roami (taking on Airbnb), Qual...

This week, Natasha interviewed Lizzie Matusov, the co-founder and CEO of Quotient, which wants to fix the "leaky pipeline problem" in tech onboarding that doesn't set up engineers for success. Yes, that's right, this week we're talking about the work needs, habits and aspirations of developers. Here's a few topics we get into: The stereotype of a coder, and where collectivism contrasts with those...

Alex is here to do our Monday show, a kickoff for the week that covers startup news, tech news, and a little bit of the money that powers both. Sound good? Here's what we have for you this morning: Money: Stocks are mixed around the world, and the crypto world is muted after some price swings last week. IPO news: ARM, the chip design concern, may go public in the United States this year, raising $...

 It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for—the winner is announced! In this episode, we get to know the winner of the 2022 Startup Battlefield competition. We’ll hear what’s next for their company and get insight from TechCrunch staff, VCs, and audience members on why they were the right choice. Be sure to check out all of the other podcasts in the TechCrunch Podcast Network: Found, Equity, The T...

Mary Ann, Becca, and Alex  gathered to riff through the week's biggest startup and venture news. A big thank you to Becca for stepping in while Alex was on leave, and a note before we dive into topics that Natasha Mascarenhas will be back on the podcast next week! Now, here's what we got into: Deals of the Week: Divert's $100 million round to tackle food waste, Trust & Will's $15 million round, an...

Mary Ann is taking over while Natasha attends a summit in LA, and this week, she interviewed Mark Goldberg, partner and fintech lead at Index Ventures. Since 2015, Mark has spent his time investing in - and sitting on the boards of - financial services companies including Plaid, Persona, Lithic, Cocoon, and Pilot. The duo talked about: The party that was 2021 and the hangover that was 2022 Mark's...

Alex is back! After taking some time to learn how to care for tiny humans, he's returned and is more than fired up to get back to podcasting. That means early mornings to get the Monday show off the page, and into your ears, made worth it thanks to the startup economy proving incredibly interesting thus far in 2023. Now, what did we get into? The following: Stocks are largely up today, but only af...

Inside Startup Battlefield is back in our feed with episode three. There are 180 companies solving crucial problems that didn’t make it to the Disrupt stage, but that doesn’t mean they’re making any less of an impact. TechCrunch writers Devin Coldewey and Harri Weber take us on a walk through the Expo Hall and let us listen into their conversations with a handful of the most interesting companies...

This week Natasha, Mary Ann, and Becca Szkutak were joined by the returning Alex Wilhelm, back from paternity leave. Yes, we had the whole gang back together today to dig through the week's pile of news -- and you can definitely tell how exciting it was by how fast we all talked through news (sorry to our dear producers!) Now, the news. Here's what we got into: Amazon has invested heavily in an In...

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 Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Kaisa Snellman, an economic sociologist and an associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Academic Director of...

Inside Startup Battlefield is back in our feed with episode two. In the second episode of Inside Startup Battlefield, we take a trip to TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 to hear pitches from the top five companies: Aaron Hall from Intropic Materials, Elizabeth Lawler from App Map, Chad Mason from Advanced Ionics, Sheeba Dawood from Minerva Lithium, Tim Lichti from Swap Robotics. We get to know the companies...

Natasha, Mary Ann and Becca got on the mic to talk startups, pet peeves and focaccia. What else did you expect? Here's what we got into: Descope landed a $53 million (!) seed round, a Phenomenal new venture fund and a neobank out to make credit more accessible to young people in Mexico. Then we pivoted to talk about buy now, pay later (BNPL), which included some chatter about Affirm's recent woes...

This week, Natasha interviewed Elana Berkowitz, founding partner at Springbank Collective and an early-stage investor working to close the gender gap. Following with our theme of covering the silent changemakers in tech, Berkowitz has done much more than invest: she’s an advisor at Eric Shmidt’s office, a social entrepreneur who was a former innovator in residence at CARE, former Obama Administrat...

Check out the newest podcast from the TechCrunch Podcast Network: Inside Startup Battlefield, the four-part series that takes you behind TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield competition. In this episode, our host and Startup Battlefield Editor Neesha Tambe breaks down how the Battlefield companies are selected for the TechCrunch Disrupt stage. Then we take a deep dive into what makes a pitch perfect w...

This week, Natasha, Mary Ann, and Becca got on the mic about: Our deals of the week included a look at a large new fund focused on Africa, a startup raising big bucks to address the nursing shortage and Rebellyous raising in a crowded and struggling space toward its effort to 'rethink the nugget.' We took a few to chat through the latest around FTX, which is attempting to take back its political d...

This week, Natasha interviewed Cleo’s former CEO and current chief business officer, SJ Sacchetti. We spoke about nearly every theme most founders and chief executives are too scared to talk about: ego, setting boundaries, stepping down and becoming a "statistic" and why a company needs to succeed without you.  We talk about failure - or the fear of it, at least - and really, where things go wrong...

Here's what Natasha got into: Big tech: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son will be skipping the Japanese conglomerates' earnings call, reports the Economic Times. We knew the flashy presentations were going away, but the silence may signal just how seriously SoftBank wants to shift its external perception. Speaking of perception, there's nothing quite like a delisting warning to get people talking about y...

This week Natasha Mascarenhas and Becca Szkutak took to their mics to sing a duet about this week's startup news. Just kidding! But we did highlight some fun companies raising capital and talked through some VC themes that look likely to be relevant throughout 2023. Here's what we got into: For our deals of the week we talked about Artifact, the new startup from the previous co-founders of Instagr...