Equity

Enterprise AI is booming so it’s no wonder that, as companies figure out how to implement it, the industry of AI infrastructure is emerging. This week, Equity is bringing you an episode of our sister show, Found. Becca and Dom talk to Nick Frosst from Cohere, the AI company building natural language models for enterprise customers. They discuss why Frosst thinks the AI boom isn’t built on a bubble, whether or not AI companies are building toward a “digital god”, and how AI regulation could be a good thing. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

In this Friday’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Mary Ann Azevedo and Becca Szkutak kick off the show dissecting a bill which aims to regulate AI at the model level. Naturally, some VCs and founders as well as students and professors are in an uproar about it. But we have to ask, is regulation in the name of safety such a bad thing? Short answer: It depends. Then the trio got into the deals of the week, including OpenAI’s potential new investment in webcam maker Opal. We also discussed some major changes at the executive level within OpenAI and what that could mean about what’s going on internally. Becca then wanted to talk about a new startup called why?!, which was founded by ex-Clubhouse employees and aims to be a networking, messaging and dating app all in one. And Kirsten wanted to drill down on electric vehicle maker Lucid’s new $1.5 billion capital infusion from the Saudi wealth fund. We then shifted gears to talk about just how many new unicorns were born in the U.S. this year so far and the surprising diversity of sectors they were in. And lastly, we dug into a couple of notable M&A deals in the fintech space, including one this week in which Payoneer scooped up a five-year-old Singaporean startup called Skuad for $61 million in cash as well as Stripe’s latest buy. We had a blast this episode, so give it a listen! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

In today’s episode of Equity Podcast, Mary Ann Azevedo talked to Flourish Ventures co-founders Tilman Ehrbeck, Emmalyn Shaw and Arjuna Costa about a variety of topics, including how their investment themes have evolved in the past 5 years and what trends they’re most excited about today. We also got their opinion on M&A deals in fintech, AI and founder wellness, among other things. The trio founded Flourish Ventures in 2019 and now the evergreen firm has $850 million under management, last raising a $350 million fund in October of 2023. Flourish invests all over the world, backing fintech startups in the U.S., and across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Notable investments include digital bank Chime, Brazilian neobank Neon, which was last priced at $1.6 billion; embedded finance startup Unit, and African payments infrastructure company Flutterwave. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

On today's Friday news roundup, we just had to talk about AI hardware taking on a new shape with Friend’s $99 necklace. The pendant gives you an AI friend to talk to and…that’s about it. Friend’s pitch is that its wearable can help combat loneliness, but other AI hardware products that have come to market lately – like Humane’s Ai Pin and Rabbit’s r1 – have fallen short of expectations. Even OpenAI, the leader in the space, has come out later than expected with its hyper realistic AI assistant, and only today to a small “alpha group” of users, so it’s hard to assess the product’s capabilities. On the other side of the AI coin is, sadly, deepfakes and hallucinations. The team touched on this topic, noting how Meta’s AI assistant hallucinated when it said that there was no assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. Rebecca asked Devin Coldewey if he thought AI companies should take greater care to block users from asking questions about sensitive topics until they could solve for hallucinations, and if they should block users from making deepfakes about certain A-list people, particularly during an election year. His answer? Yes, but it’s probably not as easy as it sounds. For our deals of the week, Kirsten kicked things off with Mary Ann's coverage of FranShares, a Chicago-based startup that lets people invest in franchise businesses starting with as little as $500 with a goal of providing passive income and portfolio diversification. Apparently, a lot of Gen Z and Millennials are investing in franchises through this platform, which just raised a $4.2 million seed round led by Chicago Ventures with participation from The Pitch Fund and Litquidity Ventures. Kirsten asked Rebecca if she, as a Millennial, would invest in a franchise, and her answer may surprise you. Kirsten and Rebecca also talked about Kennet of London, a 25-year-old growth equity investor that just raised $287 million for its largest fund to date, and it’s a growth fund. Kennet’s approach is interesting because they focus on B2B SaaS companies that are founder owned and bootstrapped, and thus potentially more capital efficient. Finally, the team discussed VC movings and shakings. Specifically, Alex Cook, a former partner at Tiger Global who oversaw some of its largest fintech investments and India deals, has left the firm after nearly seven years. Cook is the latest VC to leave a firm before the fund closed and he could see a return on investment. There must be something in the water. We had a lot of fun this episode, so give it a listen! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Global startup funding was up 16% in the second quarter, according to Crunchbase data, led by an uptick in mega-rounds. That increase was led, unsurprisingly, by the AI sector. Funding to companies in AI made up 30% of all dollars invested and actually doubled quarter over quarter to $24 billion. On today's episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Mary Ann was joined by Gené Teare, a Senior Data Editor at Crunchbase and Crunchbase News, to talk through the numbers. Teare is a well-known analyst of the global venture capital market, and was instrumental to Crunchbase’s early life and remains one of its more tenured staffers. “I was actually quite shocked by the doubling in AI because we're six quarters in from the launch of Chat GPT,” Teare said. “I think part of that is that in venture, things take time to sort of filter through.” There were also signs that larger M&A deals increased in the second quarter, providing much needed liquidity in a continued dry IPO market. “We're definitely seeing a stronger M&A environment compared to 2022,” Teare said. “The big expectation is that M&A is going to pick up more significantly and I’m not sure we’ve seen that yet, partly because prices have come down. There's a lot of companies who might realize they're not gonna make it to going public in the next 3 to 5 years…So, I think it has improved but not as much as many in the bench community were wanting or expecting.” Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup. So come back then! Before we let you go, some disclosures: We invited Gené on the show because we wanted to get her valuable insights regarding the venture capital markets. We knew she’d be great on the topic, because Mary Ann worked with her for years at Crunchbase. During her tenure at Crunchbase, she was paid partially in stock options, and retains a minor stake in Crunchbase itself. We do our best at Equity to cite the best data source for whatever topic we’re looking at, which means we use Crunchbase data as well as information from its competitors at PitchBook and CB Insights. For instance, we had a PitchBook denizen on the show to chat through Q2 2023 results last year. We think we put together the best possible show for you on its merits alone, but did want to note some professional overlaps right up top. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast 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

Today’s episode is packed with M&A talk, how one YouTuber succeeded at the creator economy, why Twitch is still losing money and an autonomous vehicle company that is making a comeback. First up, Rebecca took a look at fintech giant Stripe’s acquisition of four-year-old competitor Lemon Squeezy. The buy will allow Stripe to beef up its merchant of record selling “in a big way,” according to Stripe CEO Patrick Collison. Deal terms weren’t disclosed, but Lemon Squeezy has a reputation for turning down other offers, including a $50 million Series A. The company’s founder said he was holding out for the right partner to take the business to the next level, and apparently Stripe was it. This comment led Rebecca to explore the idea of M&A as an exit strategy. Does this practice create perverse incentives in venture capital, where investors are becoming more risk-averse and looking for a surer path to regaining capital, at the long-term expense of competition? Other startups have turned down such opportunities so they can go it alone. Just look at Wiz’s decision not to get acquired by Google for $23 billion, something we discussed on last Friday’s episode. Next, Rebecca touched on MatPat, the first big YouTuber to successfully exit his company, Theorist Media. Matthew Patrick turned his successful video series, The Game Theorists, into a full-fledged media business called Theorist, with 40 million subscribers across channels. But he was getting tired of the ceaseless content uploading, and found a way to convince investors that the business could go on without him. Now, he’s in Capitol Hill educating politicians about what creators need to succeed as small businesses. Speaking of creators and acquisitions, Rebecca pulled up a Wall Street Journal report that found that after 10 years, Twitch is still losing Amazon money. Amazon bought Twitch for $1 billion in 2014, but the company still isn’t profitable. And will it ever be? Twitch in 2023 generated about $667 million in ad revenue and $1.3 billion in commerce revenue, but that accounted for less than 0.5% of Amazon’s total 2023 revenue. Amazon defended its buy, saying Twitch has a long-term path to profitability. But broader trends that seem to favor short-form videos over watching someone play an entire video game live say otherwise. Finally, while we’re on the subject of comebacks, autonomous delivery startup Nuro is gearing up for one of its own. Nuro has been quiet for the past year or so after two big rounds of layoffs. Once the darling of the AV industry with over $2 billion in funding from high-profile investors, Nuro was burning money fast as it tried to scale and commercialize all at once. Now, Nuro is back with better AI and a new vehicle, the R3, which it will be testing later this year in the Bay Area and Houston. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

This week felt like two weeks rolled into one. To kick things off, Mary Ann Azevedo walked everyone through Clio’s huge fundraise. The Canadian legal tech company raised $900 million at a $3 billion valuation — a very large sum anytime, but especially in this market. Impressively, the company is still growing rapidly, which isn't easy to do when you’re at such a late stage. We talked about the drivers behind that growth and how Clio differs from other legal tech startups raising capital these days. Next up, Mary Ann and Rebecca Szkutak discussed Alphabet’s announcement this week that it would invest another up to $5 billion in Waymo. It’s an obvious vote of confidence on self-driving cars on Alphabet’s part, but both Becca and Mary Ann agreed on one thing: They’d prefer to stick with riding in cars with human drivers. We closed out our deals of the week with a lively discussion on a 17-year-old founder and investor who pitched investors out of the stall of his high school bathroom. He just raised money for his startup, Aviato, and his story is an inspirational and fun read. Next up was cybersecurity company Wiz turning down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Alphabet. We talked about potential reasons and looked at other examples of large M&A deals not working out. We wrapped up Equity with a look at digital banking startup Mercury abruptly shuttering its service to founders located in certain countries, such as Ukraine. Founders were naturally not happy, but another fintech was waiting in the wings to help affected customers. It was a super fun episode, so don’t miss giving it a listen! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Maven Ventures General Partner Sara Deshpande has been investing in the consumer tech space for a decade. Over time, the seed-stage venture firm has backed the likes of Zoom, Cruise, Hello Heart, Perplexity and x.AI and has grown to over $200 million in assets under management. Now, with a new $60 million fund — and plans to write six to eight checks of up to $1.5 million each year — Deshpande joined TechCrunch senior reporter Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to discuss the changes in the consumer landscape, how her firm is doubling down on artificial intelligence and what makes a startup stand out. When it comes to AI, Deshpande thinks that at the seed stage, AI's ability to improve life for consumers “is going to get here much more quickly than people think.” At the same time, she thinks that the peak AI frenzy was about 12 months ago. She also acknowledged that there is naturally going to be some “tumult” around the sector. Perplexity, for example, has been under fire amid plagiarism and web scraping charges. Equity will be back on Friday, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan did a deep dive into the CrowdStrike outage that affected around 8.5 million Windows devices around the world, causing disruptions in air travel, banking, hospitals, media outlets, federal agencies and businesses of all kinds. The outage began when CrowdStrike, a cloud security giant, sent out a defective software update. While CrowdStrike quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, the fallout continued over the weekend and will probably continue into this week, particularly for the travel sector. United, American and Delta airlines all collectively saw thousands of flights canceled and delayed, which will have ripple effects into the week. Rebecca went into how this outage – despite not being a cyberattack – has provided the world with a stark example of just how vulnerable our critical infrastructure systems are, a big problem if our adversaries decide to get any bright ideas. She also discussed the reputational damage CrowdStrike experienced, the startups that have smelled blood in the water and are poised to strike, and the potential need to regulate monopolies that offer essential services. Moving on, Rebecca took a look at what U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s stance on technology has been, now that President Joe Biden has stepped out of the race for the presidency and officially endorsed his right hand. Harris appears to favor oversight for big tech companies to protect consumer privacy, as well as AI regulation to stop companies from prioritizing profits over people and society. While some big names in the VC and tech world have backed former President Donald Trump due to his laissez-faire approach to regulating AI and crypto (something we talked about on last week’s Friday episode!), others in the industry have shown support for Harris. VCs like John Doerr and Ron Conway were among her early supporters, and as a presidential candidate, Harris was quickly endorsed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Rebecca also looked at a Reuters report detailing Nvidia’s plans to build a version of its new flagship AI chips for the Chinese market that are compatible with current U.S. export controls. The U.S. tightened controls of exports of semiconductors to China in 2023, a move designed to limit the Chinese military’s breakthroughs in supercomputing, but it appears Nvidia isn’t so keen to let that market go. Finally, Rebecca took a look at a deep dive from TechCrunch’s Paul Sawers on Yandex, once referred to as the “Google of Russia” and its comeback from Nasdaq limbo. Yandex’s publicly traded Dutch entity has severed all ties with Russia, selling off the entirety of its Russian assets in a fire sale earlier this year. The “new” company has adopted the name of one of its few remaining assets, a Finnish data center and AI cloud platform called Nebuis AI. The company is now operating as something of a corporation-startup hybrid. Its goal? To be a European AI compute leader. Equity will be back on Wednesday to interview Maven Ventures’s Sara Deshpande about why the VC is bullish on consumer funding and how venture is looking at AI companies, so tune back in then! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

To kick off this week's news roundup, Kirsten walked us through Elon Musk’s recent declaration of his intent to move both SpaceX and X’s headquarters out of California to Texas. Whether or not he’ll see those plans through remains to be seen, but of course, the Equity crew had thoughts. We then got into the deals of the week. First up, we talked about Sequoia Capital’s emailing LPs in funds raised between 2009 and 2011 with an offer to buy up to $861 million worth of shares in Stripe. The move is notable for two reasons. For one, it’s evidence that LPs are increasingly antsy for liquidity in this dry IPO market. (2024 thus far has delivered just four venture-backed tech IPOs — Reddit, Astera Labs, Ibotta and Rubrik — in March and April.) The Equity team also discussed how Sequoia’s gesture reflects that the firm is confident not only of Stripe’s future, but in its ability to eventually exit in a way that will reward investors handsomely. Next up, Rebecca Bellan led a discussion as to how Andrej Karpathy, former head of AI at Tesla and researcher at OpenAI, is launching Eureka Labs, an “AI native” education platform. We had a lively discussion on Karpathy’s new initiative and when and how AI is appropriate in the classroom. We closed out the deals segment with Mary Ann’s scoop on PartnerOne’s acquisition of HeadSpin, a company whose founder was sentenced to prison for fraud earlier this year. Employees were upset that they got nothing for their options as part of the buyout, which Marina Temkin this week reported was valued at a mere $28 million. The group then got into an in-depth conversation about Silicon Valley’s involvement in the election this year. Former President Donald Trump this week picked Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, as he runs to reclaim the office he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. Vance, who’s best known for his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” spent years as a venture capitalist before leaving the industry when elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022. We also talked about Andreessen Horowitz’s controversial vocal support of Trump and the startup-related reasons why its leaders are backing the Republican nominee. We wrapped up Equity with a look at Latin America’s startup scene and how it rebounded in funding in the second quarter, boosted by late-stage funding in the fintech sector. It was a great episode, so give it a listen! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Renegade Partners co-founders Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek have seen it all in their careers — notably over the past four years when they launched their first fund as the COVID pandemic took hold and navigated the economic roller coaster that followed. Now, with a second $128 million fund — and a plan to write checks of up to $10 million into 20 startups — Quintini and Wincek join TechCrunch editor Kirsten Korosec on Equity to discuss those early days of their first fund, what they look for in a startup and what’s driving the shift away from megafunds. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

On today’s episode of Equity, Rebecca Bellan explored Google’s reported talks to acquire Wiz, a cloud security company, for around $23 billion. Wiz provides an “all-in-one approach to cloud security,” pulling data from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and others, then scanning it all for security risk factors – something that Google might see as a good way to fortify its own cloud business, which grew 28% to $9.57 billion in Q1 this year. We also discussed a letter from OpenAI whistleblowers who say the AI company has placed illegal restrictions on how employees can communicate with government regulators. They say OpenAI’s NDAs prohibit and discourage employees and investors from communicating with the SEC over securities violations, and forced employees to waive their rights to whistleblower incentives and compensation, among other things. Bellan also talked about the paradox of how much money is being invested into AI versus how much money it’s making. In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally, per Crunchbase data. As these AI startups gain force, other companies hopping on the generative AI train want more than the assurance of trigger happy VCs and eye-popping valuations before they pull out their wallets. They want to know that this tech will improve business performance and revenue, as promised. Because after all, many experts say the promise of AI will take much longer to come to fruition than the current investment frenzy suggests, something that they also say could lead to an AI bubble bursting. Finally, we touched on the return of e-bike startup darling VanMoof, and how its new owners want to win over old customers. Their audacious strategy involves offering customers who never got their e-bikes before VanMoof went bankrupt a €1,000 discount off a new bike. Why not just refund those customers? Well, VanMoof’s new owners don’t have access to that customer money, which is tied up in bankruptcy proceedings. Will this strategy be enough to lure back jilted customers? We’ll soon find out. Equity will be back on Wednesday, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Mary Ann was off this week, and Kirsten took the lead with Becca Szkutak and Rebecca Bellan in the co-host seats. This episode is packed with deals, antitrust musings, AI and more, so let's get into it! For our first deal of the week, one of the many lawsuits Musk faces after firing 6,000 Twitter employees after his 2022 takeover was dismissed. The result may be good news for Musk, but it doesn’t eliminate Musk’s legal troubles. Musk is facing at least one other lawsuit from CEO Parag Agrawal, who along with three other former Twitter Inc. executives are seeking $128 million in severance payments from X Corp. Next up, Rebecca broke down Microsoft’s decision to leave its observer seat on OpenAI’s board, after which the AI company will no longer host observers. The legacy tech giant said it has seen enough progress being made at OpenAI and is “confident in its direction,” but we’re not exactly buying that Microsoft would give up such a coveted spot so easily. We suspect that the decision was fueled by ongoing antitrust scrutiny of Big Tech’s influence over emerging AI players. After that, Becca talked about Duolingo’s deal to buy Hobbes, a Detroit-based animation and motion design studio. Hobbes is a company that Duolingo has worked with for years on several features, including Duolingo Music, so it’s interesting to see the acquisition happen at this stage. Maybe Hobbes was having money trouble and needed a lifeline? Either way, Duolingo is calling this an acqui-hire deal. While Hobbes isn't an AI company, we make a prediction that we'll see similar acquisitions of smaller AI startups as larger companies scoop up the AI startups they're already working with. We’ve been noticing a few stories lately that investigate what happens when a company’s founder or owner dies. Today, Rebecca went over the story of Unseen Capital, whose founder Kayode Owens passed away in 2021 just after raising $30 million. The VC’s mission was to help early-stage healthcare companies started by underrepresented founders. Pharma company Eli Lilly was one of Unseen’s LPs, and in a move to protect its own investment while signaling confidence in Unseen’s mission, has brokered a deal for Seae Ventures to acquire the unmoored VC. It’s a good fit, as Seae Ventures is another diversity-focused VC firm. Meanwhile, a recent TC story on deep tech funding caught the Equity pod’s attention. The gist: a recent survey of 30 deep tech VCs from eight countries found that very technical CEOs raise larger rounds. The survey also noted that pre-seed and Series A deep tech hardware rounds were bigger in 2023 than in 2022. While the survey seems to provide a rosy picture for technical CEOs, it does not provide a complete one. For instance, the survey focused on Europe, which got the Equity crew musing about whether those same stats would hold up in North America. And it followed rounds up through Series A. The Equity pod wondered if the results changed in Series B rounds and beyond. Plus, we think the rise of deep tech-focused funds may also play a role here too. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Mike Maples Jr. is a prolific angel investor and co-founder of early-stage venture firm Floodgate. Over the years, he’s taken a lot of bets. Some have paid off handsomely (Twitter, Twitch, Lyft and Bazaarvoice, for example). Others have not. On today's episode of Equity, Mary Ann sat down with Mike to dig into a number of topics, including some of his most memorable investments, the one that got away, what he looks for when evaluating startups that pitch him - and what Godzilla has to do with it. We also talked a bit about his new book that he co-authored with Peter Ziebelman called “Pattern Breakers. Why some startups change the future.” Press play and join the conversation! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

On today's episode of Equity, we're taking a look at news you might've missed over the holiday weekend here in the U.S., starting with the recent OpenAI security breach. While it doesn't seem that people have to be too worried about what the hackers actually accessed, the fact that it happened is worth paying attention to. TechCrunch's Devin Coldeway argues that AI companies are treasure troves of data and will likely become more of a target for hackers. Companies that work with the large AI companies should pay attention. We also had an update on Fisker’s slide into bankruptcy. The EV startup, that you've already heard about on Equity, had a new update this week. The company asked its bankruptcy judge for permission to sell its remaining inventory for $14,000 a vehicle, a noticeable drop from the $70,000 Fisker was initially asking for. This has some fearing that this chapter 11 bankruptcy could turn into a chapter 7. To close out, we looked at a new trend of venture funds helping seed investors exercise their pro rata rights and avoid their equity stake being diluted. This is interesting because while it could be good for smaller funds to have a way to maintain their equity stakes, pro rata rights discussions can get contentious and bringing more capital to the table won't necessarily help that. Equity will be back on Wednesday with an interesting conversation between Mary Ann and angel investor and Floodgate Co-Founder, Mike Maples Jr, so we’ll talk to you then! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

What’s the common thread between Tesla, building startups, General Motors, venture capital and Lyft? Jon McNeill, co-founder and partner of DVx Ventures, joins TechCrunch editor Kirsten Korosec on Equity to discuss how Elon Musk’s pay package has influenced founders, when it makes sense to go light on cash and heavy on equity, and his firm’s unique approach to investing that eschews the traditional management fee structure. McNeill describes DVx as VC 2.0. The firm comes up with business ideas and builds them into a startup within the firm before it goes out to find the leadership team. To date, the firm has started and invested in 14 portfolio companies that span EVs and AI, SaaS, consumer tech and climate tech. McNeill also walks Equity through the startup creation process, managing risk and how to spot opportunities that can disrupt the market. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Mary Ann, Haje and Kirsten are back on the mic for this week's episode, which was is jam-packed with deals, hot topics, and the latest dramaaaaaa in the tech world. For Deals of the Week, Haje wanted to chat about Formation Bio, an AI-focused drug development startup that just raised a whopping $372 million in Series D funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Next, Kirsten broke down the surprising partnership between Volkswagen Group and Rivian and how its initial $1 billion investment could grow up to $5 billion. To wrap up our deals, Mary-Ann highlighted Nubank’s acquisition of Hyperplane, an AI-for-banks startup. Moving onto our themes, Haje took us on a deep dive into the fediverse, a decentralized network of social media platforms like Mastodon, Threads, and even Trump’s Truth Social. The fediverse has seen a surge in popularity, especially after Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X). Mastodon, for example, has just about tripled its user base since Musk took over. The appeal lies in its decentralized nature, offering users more control and niche communities. Whether you’re a photographer, a journalism enthusiast, or just someone fed up with traditional social media, the fediverse has something for you. Last but not least, we discussed the ongoing debate around DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) in tech in a more controversial segment. Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang recently sparked a debate by advocating for MEI (Merit, Excellence, Intelligence) over DEI. This has drawn support from big names like Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey but also significant criticism. The stats are troubling: new women recruit levels in the U.S. data industry have dropped dramatically, and DEI-related job listings are down. Equity will be back on Wednesday with a new interview episode, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Today, we’re bringing you a conversation from TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in DC earlier this month, where TechCrunch Editor in Chief & General Manager Connie Loizos sat down with Luther Lowe, who serves as Y Combinator’s Head of Public Policy. Lowe joined the accelerator last fall from Yelp, where he was SVP of Public Policy. Connie and Luther touched on antitrust efforts to reign in big tech, Y Combinator’s impact, leadership and access to talent, and what competition, policy and regulation look like in the AI era. It’s a super interesting conversation, so press play and listen in! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

In a press release this morning, the European Commission named Apple as the first of tech’s so-called “gatekeepers” to be charged for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Apple is one of six tech giants named by the European Commission as “gatekeepers” last year, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft. While we continue to keep our eyes on the EU’s attempts to ensure a competitive marketplace, that’s not all we got into on the Equity podcast this morning. Rebecca Bellan led the show this morning and reported that X still has a Verified bot problem, but this time they came for TechCrunch writers (herself included). The experience had us wondering if X’s competitors will step up, and create platforms with more safety…and fewer bots. Rebecca also had an IPO update for our listeners this morning as Shein finally filed for its public debut in London, and we closed out our startup coverage with a look at Sir Jack A Lot’s startup for retail traders. The startup, which recently raised a $4.5 million seed round, had us hyped on the retail trading space and its continued growth. Finally, Haje closed out today’s show with a teardown for Feel Therapeutics. The startup recently raised a $3.5M seed deck to revolutionize mental health care with a science-forward approach that integrates wearable devices, mobile apps, and clinician dashboards. Hit play to hear how they did it! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

This week, co-hosts Mary-Ann Azavedo and Haje Kamps were joined by the ever-insightful Kirsten Korosec to dive into the latest and greatest happenings in the startup world. Kicking things off, our trio of hosts break down three major deals of the week. First, there's Waabi, an autonomous trucking startup that just closed a whopping $200 million Series B round. Kirsten Korosec provides an inside look into how Waabi's AI-first approach is setting it apart in the crowded autonomous vehicle space and why investors are still willing to back big bets in this field despite the market's ups and downs. Next, they explore the intriguing case of Gynger, a fintech company that has raised $20 million led by PayPal Ventures. Mary-Ann explains how Gynger is shaking up the way startups handle tech purchases with its buy-now-pay-later model, working both with buyers and sellers to offer flexible payment terms. Kirsten and your trusty correspondent weigh in on the potential risks and rewards of this unique business model, especially in today's volatile economic environment. The third deal takes us into the realm of artificial intelligence with Safe Superintelligence. I'm delving into the story of OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s new venture, which aims to develop general AI with a focus on safety. We discuss the ambitious goals of this startup and the challenges of balancing rapid advancement with the ethical considerations of creating superintelligent AI. After dissecting these deals, the conversation shifts to a sobering topic: the wave of bankruptcies that have hit the startup world in 2024. Kirsten provides a detailed analysis of the factors leading to these failures, with a spotlight on high-profile cases like EV startup Fisker and fintech service Synapse. The team discusses the common pitfalls that led to these companies' downfalls and what other startups can learn from their mistakes. But it's not all doom and gloom—our hosts wrap up with an exciting discussion about the future. They dive into Voodoo's acquisition of social media startup BeReal for $537 million. Mary-Ann explores the reasons behind this bold move, how Voodoo plans to integrate ads into BeReal's platform, and what this could mean for the landscape of social media. Kirsten and myself debate the potential success of this strategy and the broader implications for user engagement and authenticity in the age of digital advertising. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Last week, Brex announced that it would be ditching its co-CEO model, and that got Equity hosts Haje Kamps and Mary Ann Azevedo wondering about co-CEO teams and the effectiveness of the structure overall. Brex, founded in 2017 by Pedro Franceschi and Henrique Dubugras, initially thrived under the co-CEO structure, with Pedro focusing on internal operations and Enrique handling external relations. However, as the company grew, this setup began to slow decision-making, prompting a shift to a single CEO model. Pedro will now lead as the sole CEO, while Enrique transitions to Chairman of the Board. We discuss the broader implications and challenges of co-CEO leadership, highlighting how this change aims to enhance agility and appeal to investors as Brex eyes a potential public offering. We also explore other companies that have adopted or abandoned similar leadership models, providing a comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of shared CEO responsibilities in the competitive tech landscape. Equity will be back with a full rundown of the week's startup and venture news on Friday, but if you want more from TechCrunch podcasts until then, Darrell and Becca spoke to both Brex CEOs on Found last year about why the duo chose to go down the co-CEO path in the first place. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

This week on Equity, we discussed some big news that really matters: How Black founders are addressing the diversity gap in AI chatbots. We’ve all noticed how OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI chatbot tools struggle with cultural nuance, often coming up with answers that reflect a largely Euro-centric worldview. Now, a handful of Black-owned chatbots and ChatGPT versions – like Latimer.AI, ChatBlackGPT and Spark Plug – have cropped up to ensure Black POVs are included in the AI conversation, and that Black founders get a cut of this trillion-dollar industry. That’s not all Rebecca talked about on Monday’s show. We also looked at how different social media companies are playing around with what’s real and what isn’t, an increasingly salient topic in the age of AI. On the one hand, we’ve got TikTok’s introduction of generative AI avatars, which creators and brands can use to speed up ad campaigns and spread them out to a global audience. And on the other hand, YouTube is experimenting with a “Notes” feature that lets users add context to videos. It’s an attempt to combat misinformation as AI threatens to inundate us all with deepfake and misleading political content in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election. In IPO Land, Rebecca touched on Tempus’s 9% rise and $441 million raise on its Nasdaq debut last Friday. The genomic testing and data analysis company, started by Groupon’s founder, need have only hinted at its future genAI integrations for investors to throw money at it. Meanwhile, Chinese e-commerce giant Shein is struggling to get Beijing to approve its London IPO, reports the Financial Times. Shein’s executive chair reportedly angered Chinese regulators last month by saying its corporate values meant it “could be considered a US company,” so now the retailer is trying to walk back on those comments. Shein is trying to raise £50 billion (US$64 billion) from its London IPO, and it needs Beijing on its side to do so. Haje closed out today’s show with a teardown of Kinnect’s $250K angel deck. Founded just last year, the digital archive startup is already making waves with $100,000 in funding from Techstar’s Rising Stars program. Hit play to hear how they did it! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Welcome back to Friday Equity! In today’s episode Equity podcast, Mary Ann, Haje and Becca dug into three very different but all super interesting deals of the week. Haje wanted to discuss Raspberry Pi’s debut on the public market, and we all agreed that what this profitable company has managed to build – a tiny affordable computer that fits into the palm of your hand – is very neat. Mary Ann then wanted to talk about InScope, a fintech which just raised a $4.3 million seed round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to automate financial reporting. Becca got to riff on Meowtel, a niche – and also profitable – startup focused on cat-sitting that has raised just $1 million in venture capital over its nine-year life. The trio then talked about all the Apple news (largely AI-focused) that came out of WWDC and its potential impact on the startup world. They then turned their attention to Elon Musk’s reaction to Apple’s announcement that it would be integrating ChatGPT into its iOS. While he clearly wasn’t happy about it, we discussed what his true motives for threatening to pull Apple devices from his companies might be. That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back bright and early Monday with more tech and startup news. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Vanessa Larco, partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), believes that Generative AI’s impact on the world of SaaS could be huge. The investor joined Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to talk through, among other topics, her theories about how GenAI could alter the pricing models SaaS businesses use when charging customers. “I think where [SaaS] people aspire to get to is value-based pricing. This is really, really hard,” she said. But “I think it's a North Star for a lot of different SaaS products.” Larco also touched on how incumbents’ AI strategies may impact the startup world in general and in particular, what Apple’s new intelligence offering might mean for founders. The venture capitalist also gave us insight as to why despite being a big believer in the enterprise, she’s also still bullish on consumer investing and what she looks for when evaluating startups in the space. “I'm bullish on it. Look, I think the consumer is always going to spend. They just are,” she said. “It just depends on what they're going to spend on, what their priorities are.” In addition to discussing the SaaS and consumer spaces, the investor also shared her thoughts on what she believes the next wave of fintech will look like. (Spoiler alert: think less neobanks and more SMB focus). It was a super fun conversation, so press play and listen in! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Apple’s WWDC is just hours away, and we’re gearing up for big announcements on – you guessed it – AI. We're kicking off today’s episode of Equity with a list of what we can (and can't) expect from the highly anticipated developer conference. But that's not all we talked about this morning. Becca Szkutak also took a look at Byju’s alarming valuation drop. The Indian edtech giant, once valued at $22 billion, might now be worth nothing according to BlackRock. The news may not come as a surprise given the rocky year Byju’s has had, but as Manish Sing put it, its journey stands to be one of the most “spectacular startup slides in recent memory.” To close out, we had news of a new fund looking to give the Italian startup ecosystem a boost. We’re optimist about the Italian Founders Fund and what it could contribute to the market, so press play and join the conversation! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

As always, there was a lot happening in startup land this week, and the Equity team had so much fun breaking it down for you. On today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Mary Ann and Rebecca discussed Robinhood’s plans to buy European crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million in cash and why they weren’t really surprised by the news. The duo then dug into not just one but two exciting health-care related deals. Rebecca wanted to riff on Sword Health’s innovative AI-powered virtual physical therapy tech and recent fundraise and corresponding cool valuation bump. Mary Ann then brought up Eko Health, which just raised $41 million after getting FDA clearance to help detect the first signs of heart failure during a routine medical exam (really, how cool is that?!). From there, they got to grill transportation reporter extraordinaire Sean O’Kane about his in-depth investigation into the mess at electric vehicle manufacturer Fisker. Think hoods flying off and pinching parts from the production line kind of mess. Oof. From there, they talked about the drama at AI mortgage startup LoanSnap and how that company is being sued left and right among other things. On a more positive note, they then riffed about two very interesting fintech startups focused on Gen Z, Frich (which stands for ‘effin rich) and Fizz – the latter of which is a YC alum just raised $14.4 million in a seed round led by Kleiner Perkins. That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back bright and early Monday with more tech and startup news. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Consumer startups have taken a hit when it comes to venture funding. But according to Eurie Kim, partner at Forerunner Ventures and founding member of All Raise, consumer is where it’s at. The investor joined Mary Ann Azevedo on Equity to talk through the intricacies of the space. She pointed out that last year, just 7% of seed capital went to consumer startups. Yet, research shows that consumer company performance has outpaced enterprise, Kim contends. Forerunner itself has backed the likes of Oura, Chime and Prose, among others. Kim also talked about the advantages of being dedicated investors in a space that has seen a number of tourist VCs drift in and out. In addition to discussing the state of consumer investing and what consumer investors are looking for, the venture capitalist shared her thoughts on the investment landscape as a whole, what’s up with IPOs and why every startup should have AI in their pitch deck. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Welcome to this week's Episode of Equity Monday. We're kicking off the week with a deep dive from this weekend into the demise of electric vehicle startup Fisker at the hands of its founders' whims. Fisker, which was founded by famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker, is on the brink of bankruptcy after only having delivered a few thousand electric Ocean SUVs. Then, Rebecca Bellan talked about X's new rules to allow adult content (as long as it's "consensually produced," whatever that means), and why that's problematic for the safety of other users -- namely women, who are most often the targets of sexually explicit trolling and harassment. We also touched on Trump's TikTok debut, which came in the wake of the former president's felony conviction. To wrap up, Bellan also discussed a story that TechCrunch published over the weekend looking into the new trend of smaller, lesser-known investors getting shares of hot private AI companies like Anthropic, X.ai and Perplexity by using special purpose vehicles, or SPVs. The result has been a Wild West, high risk, buyer-beware situation, with SPV terms varying wildly. Haje closed out the show with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time looking into the Angel pitch deck for RAW Dating App. RAW just raised a $3 million friends and family round to shake up the dating scene by shedding fake, TikTok-ified, heavily filtered photos and replacing them with a more genuine, unvarnished experience. 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

Welcome back to Equity Friday! In this week’s episode, Mary Ann, Becca Szkutak,and Haje Kamps tackled three deals of the week: xAI, Elon Musk has once again proven that his name alone can shake up the investment world, raising a staggering $6 billion for his AI startup. Solutions by Text, The Dallas-based company, which has been bootstrapped for over a decade, secured $110 million in funding. And WeatherXM, which is a company bringing Web3 into the weather forecasting space that raised $7.7 million in a Series A. Then they discussed the Synapse Collapse and what it means for the larger FinTech ecosystem. Synapse, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy leaving many startups and customers in the lurch. Lastly, the crew wraps it up by discussing Becca’s piece on who is (and is not) going to IPO this year and what that signals to the industry. That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back bright and early Monday morning with more tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s no secret that the bar for startups to land a Series A has risen, but has it risen too high? According to Jenny Fielding, a co-founder and Managing Partner at Everywhere Ventures, startups are facing what she calls “The Series A Chasm.” In a post on X this month, Fielding said, “there’s a huge backlog of seed stage companies with nice traction – just not $3m ARR + 30% MOM growth kinda traction.” The post sparked a conversation online, and Fielding joined Haje Kamps on Equity to talk through it all. Looking beyond Fielding’s portfolio, we can see that the early stage storm has been brewing for quite some time. According to data from Crunchbase, seed companies have raised about $7 billion so far this year, which is down $1 billion year over year and down significantly in the later stages. Crunchbase has even taken to calling this a moment of “extended adolescence” for startups, with an increase in companies raising $5 million+ seed rounds instead of a Series A. Of course, this meant we had to address the AI elephant in the room, and the $135 million seed round Musk’s xAI raised last December. Note that after 6 months, the company behind Grok has already announced a $6 billion Series B round. It was an interesting chat, so press play and join the conversation! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

We’re kicking off the short week with news about Elon Musk, and no, it’s not about X or Tesla. Instead, we’re talking about Musk’s other other company, xAI. In a blog post this weekend, xAI announced it raised $6 billion in Series B funding, confirming earlier reports that the AI startup was looking to raise at a pre-money valuation of $18 billion. With Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and Valor among its backers, it looks like Musk is taking steps to catch up and compete with the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and Alphabet. The ongoing AI race was only the beginning of what we covered on today’s episode of Equity. This morning, Becca Szkutak dove deep into the collapse of Synapse, a banking-as-a-service company whose bankruptcy could impact an estimated 10 million end customers and 100 fintechs, including teen banking-focused Copper. While this is not the only troubling headline in the fintech space, as our co-host Mary Ann Azevedo put it, “it shows just how treacherous things are for the often-interdependent fintech world when one key player hits trouble.” To wrap up this morning’s news segment, we also discussed a report from The Washington Post that election officials and researchers are considering a new approach to combating misinformation called “pre-bunking.” Companies like Google are testing it out in the lead up to the European Union election, but we remain skeptical about how successful the technique could be. Haje closed out the show with another Pitch Deck Teardown, this time examining Berlin-based Terra One’s deck. The startup just raised a cool $7.5 million to make sure Germany’s clean energy isn’t going to waste. Listen through to the end to hear how they made it happen! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Say hi to the new Equity crew! To kick off today's show, Mary Ann invited her new co-hosts - Becca Szkutak, Rebecca Bellan, and Haje Kamps - to introduce themselves and shared a bit more about what they do here at TC. The team then jumped right into the news, starting with Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet announcing she is leaving the company, just weeks after TechCrunch reporter Dominic Madori-Davis published an in-depth investigative article on what’s been going on behind the scenes at the accelerator in recent years. (You can listen to Dom talk more about it here). As always, there was plenty more to uncover in the world of startups and venture. Mary Ann, Rebecca and Haje dug into two funding deals, one straddling the lines of crypto and social media and the other in the fintech space. Rebecca wanted to talk about Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol that ​​invites developers to build other apps on top of it. The startup raised a $150 million round, news that had the Equity team asking, “Is crypto back?” Mary Ann dug into immigrant banking platform Majority securing $20M in funding after notching an impressive $40 million in ARR as of April. Last but not least, our trio riffed on the fact that a bunch of tech majors made commitments to the safe development of their AI models, including a potential “kill switch.” While we felt the news was mostly positive, we are also skeptical, too. The team also discussed the challenging environment for emerging fund managers, and our surprise at just how many of them there are. That’s it for this week, but we’ll be back bright and early Tuesday morning (thanks to a U.S. holiday on Monday) with more tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Today, we’re listening back to not one but two interviews from the other side of the globe, thanks to our new co-host Rebecca Bellan, who spent three years in Auckland, New Zealand. Late last year, Rebecca hopped across the Tasman to Australia to report on the startup scene in Australia, and came back to us with a temperature check on VC in the Antipodes. Rebecca spoke to two Aussie VCs: Dan Krasnostein from Square Peg and Gabrielle Munzer from Main Sequence. Rebecca and our guests dug into why early stage funding is popping off in the region, the government's role in growing a startup ecosystem, fintech, climate tech, and what it’s like to compete and collaborate with Silicon Valley. In addition to these conversations, Rebecca wrote a few deep dive stories from her time in Australia, including a look at its burgeoning climate tech scene and some of the people who are fighting to lift women up in the ecosystem. Rebecca also chatted with Canva — the SaaS darling of Australia — to learn how the company is embracing generative AI at its core and pursuing more B2B clients. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

Last week was a big one for AI news, and one thing that stood out to us was OpenAI's deal with Reddit. Per the terms of the deal, OpenAI will get to use content from Reddit like posts and replies to train its AI, and Reddit will get access to some unspecified AI tools. Reddit's stock soared 11% in extended trading following the news. That's not all we talked about on today's episode of Equity. This morning, Rebecca Bellan also walked us through a new social media platform called Maven that wants to do away with likes, followers and clout-chasing in favor of more serendipitous internet exploration. Maven was co-founded by OpenAI alum Kenneth Stanley and is backed by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams. Speaking of Twitter, X.com is officially live as a platform. Annoyingly for Elon Musk, so is Twitter.com. Bellan also covered some fresh cybersecurity consolidation. Israeli security firm CyberArk has purchased Venafi out from Thoma Bravo for $1.54 billion -- that's $1 billion in cash and the rest in shares. Before you go, don't miss the latest Pitch Deck Teardown from Haje Kamps. In today's segment Haje digs deep on Berlin-based startup Goodcarbon's deck. The startup just raised a €5.25 million (around $5.5 million) seed round to make its mark on the big business of carbon credits, and its pitch deck does a great job at showing traction, but is not so great its team slide. Listen to the end to learn more! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 Kentucky-based startup’s decision to raise $27.5 million in venture capital after being bootstrapped for six years and achieving profitability. We then moved on to AI-land, and all the fascinating new features revealed by OpenAI and Google this past week. And of course, we had to riff on what all of that means for startups. Last but not least, the trio examined the trend of venture capital investors leaving their firms to do other things – including starting their own new firms, or going back to old ones, in some cases. We're still wondering what could be behind all the moves, but it doesn't look like the trend is not going anywhere anytime soon. That’s it for this week but never fear, we’ll be back bright and early Monday morning with your tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 discussed the broader accelerator landscape as a whole, considering what also recently took place at Techstars. It's a lively and hopefully helpful discussion you won't want to miss! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 discussed on today’s episode of Equity. This morning, Rebecca Szkutak also broke down what we can and can’t expect from OpenAI’s livestream event later today. On Friday, Sam Altman put a stop to rumors that the company will release a Google search competitor, but he did say OpenAI could announce a search feature within ChatGPT. To close out, Haje took the reins with another Pitch Deck Teardown. This time, we’re highlighting Cloudsmith, which secured $15 million for its cloud platform. The startup's 2021 round was the largest Series A for a company from Northern Ireland since 2005, so clearly they got a thing or two right. Listen through to the end to find out how the company pulled it off! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 increasingly digital space and also how one North Carolina startup that started out by building drones to clean windows in tall buildings has also become a robotics company. Kirsten helped us understand what was behind Motional’s decision to delay its commercial robotaxi plans amid restructuring, and the greater context around that. We then dug into digital banking startup Mercury’s plans to branch out into software, and how it now fits into the increasingly crowded spend management landscape. And, we riffed on the fact that we covered three M&A deals this week (read about them here, here and here) and how refreshing that was considering M&A activity has been lighter than expected. (Spoiler alert: AI was involved in at least two of them). Last but certainly not least, we close out the show with an announcement. After 7 amazing years, Alex's time with the podcast, and TechCrunch, is coming to a close. We're excited to see what he does next, but we are sure going to miss him dearly. Thank you for everything, Alex! This is not, however, the end of Equity. We'll be back bright and early Monday morning with your tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 previously reported was looking to get done at around $500 million. The transaction, notable for its size, is also worth considering given that Noname was valued at a unicorn price tag back in 2021. Wiz is another name in the cybersecurity space that could do deals, thanks to a recent $1 billion fundraise. It intends to buy both wounded unicorns and hot, smaller startups to bolster its business. The company is now valued at $12 billion, which is a lot. (Wayve also raised north of $1 billion, but is focused on the self-driving space instead of security.) We also saw Monzo snag $190 million more, bringing its full-year fundraising score to more than $600 million as TikTok fights a ban, and Oyo tries to raise new capital at a fraction of its prior worth. And to close, Haje is bringing Pitch Deck Teardown to Equity! If you have not read the series — start here — you are in for a treat. We're kicking the new segment off with a look at NOQX's deck, what worked, what didn't, and what's next. Chat Friday! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 ahead of us, we also dug into the latest employment news concerning China’s tech giants. Like many large U.S. tech shops, they are shedding staff. Tech shops around the world are showing that they can do more with less. Sticking to China, the country is set to deliver another IPO, this time in the United States. Momenta could raise up to $300 million in its debut, meaning that its upcoming listing is is going to carry real weight. (More on Momenta here.) And to close out we took a look at new capital that the U.S. government is putting into digital twins, and why alt-clouds are making real progress but could run into growth speedbumps in time. Equity is back on Wednesday — we’ll chat with you then! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 discuss Anna Heim's recent reporting on disability tech and how AI is taking and industry and accelerating it. Even better, there appear to be a mix of business models approached by the startups we discussed. That means that there could be many avenues to making tech that works better for more folks into real, and large businesses. To close out, Dominic-Madori Davis joined us to chat about her reporting on Techstars. The company has been shaking up its operations for some time now, leading to certain departures from its ranks. TechCrunch's deep-dive into how it all went down is well worth your time. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 horse might take a while. Elsewhere in startup-land this week on Equity, we dug into the Chowdeck round. It’s a Nigerian company that is putting up impressive growth with its food delivery business. Keep an eye on it, Nigeria is a big market and TechCrunch writes that no single company has its delivery business on lock. Yet, at least. On this morning’s episode we also took a look at the recent Corelight round, which given its valuation and revenue growth, is one to chew on. From the venture side of things, we discussed two stories. First, that Intuition is going after the consumer market. From Paris, the smaller fund is betting that going the opposite direction as most VCs is how to make the most money. And second, a new venture capital supergroup is forming. Axios reports that investors with backgrounds at a16z, Bessemer and Index are building a new firm. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 billion valuation. No, it’s now looking for $6 billion at an $18 billion valuation. That’s a lot of capital. But there was even more to chat about, including the EU handing Apple even more bad news in the form of placing iPadOS under its DMA rules that should force third-party app stores on the tablet line in time. And Tesla got some good news in China, though just how impactful it will prove is not 100% certain at this juncture. And to close out, the Times has a fascinating look at pace at which venture capitalists are putting money into AI startups. Given the ability of OpenAI to land big deals with Microsoft money, I wonder if it is enough? Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 little bit of our own mixed in. Happily it was all pretty darn interesting, so Mary Ann and Alex started with Rubrik before pivoting to Pomelo, a startup that has a very interesting twist on the remittances market. From there it was time to talk about TikTok. What was once an unfathomable result — TikTok being forced to divest from its parent company or face a ban — became reality pretty darn quickly. The United States is not the first company to ban the service, but we noted during the show that the company we are keeping is not the most enticing. Still, here we are, what does it mean for consumers? 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. Equity is back on Monday. Thanks for hanging out with us! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 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. Hit play, let’s have a chat! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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. In short, normal databases are hot garb at the sort of queries we need for AI, while vector search is pretty good at it. Enter startups, enter venture capital. And, enter the biggest tech companies. May the startups win. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 rounds, the importance of long-term thinking and the current state of startup investment. We'll also dive into: Why Hans is so bullish on fintech, and what sectors within fintech especially has him psyched. Recent changes at his own firm, and why there have been so many personnel changes at VC firms as of late And more! All right, sit back, hit play and have some fun with us. Equity will be back on Monday. See you then! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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 transportation news to chew through, especially as it relates to Tesla. Equity is back tomorrow with a special interview between Mary Ann and Notable Capital's Hans Tung, so stay tuned! Until then, hit play and let’s have some fun. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 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

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 we also got to chat through Two Chairs’ recent and massive Series C, Quilt’s heat pump work and fundraise, and several IPO updates. Here’s hoping that after Ibotta and Rubrik get out the door, more IPOs follow. Also on the show today was a grip of venture capital news. Bay Bridge Ventures is raising a $200 million climate fund — it has lots of good company there, given rising LP interest in climatetech more generally — and a SpaceX alum is building a new VC firm that we covered. To close, the massive, gobsmackingly big $7.2 billion worth of new funds from a16z. We dug into their breakdown on the podcast, but the short version is that it appears that the venture slowdown has not managed to impede the venture firm’s golden touch when it comes to fundraising. Hit play, let’s have some fun! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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

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: 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. Tesla is cutting more than 10% of its total global workforce. CEO Elon Musk told employees in an internal email that the cuts were aimed at eliminating role duplications, but the company has been seeing its sales start to slow down, and some concern around waning demand for EVs could be playing a part in the decision to slash costs. There’s lots more going on: The price ranges for Rubrik’s IPO have been leaked; ShareChat has suffered a valuation beheading haircut, and global smartphone sales are picking up again. Hit play to catch up on what’s going to be the talk of Tech Twitter this week. We'll be back Wednesday with our mid-week startup and venture highlights! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. 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