Equity

This week, Mary Ann, Becca and Haje dug into three funding deals, proving that bigger is not always better (or more interesting).

Becca wanted to talk about Spoor, an Oslo, Norway-based startup using AI to help wind farms mitigate its impact on birds (how cool is that?) while Haje wanted to discuss how fintech Layer is looking to take on QuickBooks in the SMB accounting space. Mary Ann, meanwhile, was excited to look into one Kentuc...

For months, TechCrunch Senior Reporters Mary Ann Azevedo and Christine Hall have been following the story of Newchip's bankruptcy and its impact on founders and today on Equity, they're joined by Haje Kamps to dig deep into how the accelerator’s fall from grace threatened the cap tables of thousands of startups. In some cases, companies suddenly were so high risk to banks and investors that they had to shut down.

The trio also discu...

Last week was a busy one for some Apple Store employees. Over the weekend, workers at Apple’s Townson, Maryland store — the first Apple retail store to have a formally recognized union — voted to authorize a strike. While the date of the strike is still being determined, the union has been negotiating with Apple since January 2023 over work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling, and wages, among other issues.

But that wasn't all we...

Finally, some good news! This week, we were pleasantly surprised to see that FTX victims would be getting some money back – even if it’s not as much as they might have hoped.

That wasn’t all, though: Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec, and Alex Wilhelm had plenty else to talk about this week on Equity.

We discussed why investors are drawn to the fact that Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increas...

Good news, crypto founders: Venture capital activity is picking up in your sector after falling to multi-year lows in late 2023. Put another way, venture folks appear more web3-bullish than before, even if recent tallies are far under highs seen in late 2021.

But that was hardly the only news item we had to dig into on Equity this morning. Akamai is spending $450 million for API security firm Noname, a deal that TechCrunch previousl...

News that Jack Dorsey is out at Bluesky caused a stir this weekend. After all, Dorsey is a former Twitter co-founder and CEO, so his investment of time into the rival social network carried weight. The decentralized social networking service said that it is looking for a new board member.

But while we had to talk about Dorsey’s latest on Equity today, it was far from the only topic we got to chat about. Past a busy earnings week ahe...

Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec, and Alex Wilhelm had a lot to parse this week. 

We had notes on wallet-as-a-service’ startup Ansa's latest fundraise, and how Alex initially misunderstood its business model. Then Kirsten talked us through a simply massive deal in the self-driving space, while Alex wanted to riff on Beehiiv and its own funding round. $33 million is no small Series B in 2024!

From there, we had a few minutes to discu...

Startups are not shying away from big projects. That’s my takeaway from news that The Browser Company’s Arc browser is now generally available for Windows users, just as Island raised a massive grip of capital for its enterprise-focused browser tool. It’s very encouraging to see startups going after core pieces of technology, and not just the apps that sit atop platforms.

Of course, Chromium still reigns supreme, but unseating that ...

We’re off to an AI-heavy start to the week. OpenAI has a new deal with the Financial Times that caught our eye. Sure, it’s another content licensing deal, but there appears to be a bit more in the tie-up than just content flowing one way, and money the other.

On this early-week episode of Equity, we also dug into the xAI news that TechCrunch broke recently; namely that Musk’s AI enterprise is not looking to raise $3 billion on a $15...

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. If Rubrik’s result isn’t enough to break the logjam, well, maybe there’s something else going on.

But there was a lot more that happened this week, which meant that the Equity crew had a pile of news to get through as always, with a littl...

Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: 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 th...

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 valu...

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 and Latin America. 

Long-time listeners may recall that Hans, whose portfolio includes the likes of Airbnb, StockX and Slack, joined Equity last year to focus on down rounds, a term often treated like an evil phrase. Today, we're digging into why Hans still believes in down...

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 impen...

What is worth $11 billion and wants to go to Mars to collect rocks? NASA’s mission to Mars to collect rocks that was expected to cost $11 billion and take ages. So, the U.S. space agency is throwing the doors open to get more input, and that means that startups are looking at an opportunity that is truly out of this world.

But that’s not the only thing going on. Today’s Equity episode is focused on all things startups, which means w...

It’s only Monday morning, but it already feels like Thursday given the sheer amount of news that’s flowing in.

We have two critical headlines for you today:

1. OpenAI is planning to open an office in Tokyo and launch a new GPT-4 model for the Japanese language. The U.S., EU, and China are all racing for leadership in AI, and OpenAI’s foray into Japan could expand the list of leading blocs and nations.
2. Tesla is cutting more than 10% o...

Today, the Equity crew dug into Automattic buying Beeper for $125 million. Recall that the WordPress parent company bought Texts.com last year for $50 million. Elsewhere in deal-land, Proton bought Standard Notes, and we recently discussed the Wonderschool-Early Day purchase. More, please!

In the Deals of the Week column, Mary Ann chose Payjoy’s massive new run rate, while Alex wanted to riff on the Proxima Fusion round that could h...

Today on Equity’s startup-focused Wednesday show, we dug into the Multiverse-Searchlight deal that reminded us of the Wonderschool-Early Day transaction that we covered on the show a few weeks back.

We also dug into the latest Guesty round, which was both large and interesting from a financial perspective, the Monad Labs transaction that led us to try and explain the difference between L1 and L2 blockchains, and Cyera’s quick recent...

Now that we are finally past Y Combinator’s demo day — though our Friday show is worth listening if you haven’t had a chance yet — we can dive into the latest news. So, this morning on Equity Monday we got into the chance that the United States might pass a real data privacy law. There’s movement to report, but we’re still very, very far from anything becoming law.

Elsewhere, the U.S. and TSMC have a new deal, there’s gaming news to...