Equity Monday: Crypto hacks and a scuttled AI IPO

Equity shot: Airbnb's IPO is finally here: Today we have an Equity Shot for you about Airbnb's S-1 filing, as it looks to go public before the year is out. First we get into Airbnb's macro performance, which shows a stable picture historical revenue growth. There is a ton of numbers to get to so get ready for a quick dive into net revenue, gross margins, and losses. Then we discuss the dramatic drop in bookings, the promising comeback, and if short-term travel is Airbnb's future. There's a weird quarter of profitability that you should all know about, and a heads up on what to look for in Q4 numbers. Finally, we talk about the bullish and bearish case on Airbnb, which poetically filed the same day that Moderna announced a promising vaccine trial. by Equity

13 min listen

Equity Monday: Good vaccine news, three rounds, and why IPOs are trending: So, what did we get into this morning? A grip of things, which I've listed below in order: American Thanksgiving is this week, so news may slow as we move towards Thursday. New, good vaccine news is boosting stocks and hopes that the pandemic could be brought under control next year. Bitcoin is racing towards new records. LA-based Credit Key raises $33 million for its business-to-business payments platform -- in light of the Affirm IPO this round is no surprise. Digital freight forwarder Forto raises another $50M in round led by Inven Capital -- the pandemic is messing around with supply chains, perhaps leaving room for startups in the space to aggressively grow. Digital electricity supplier Tibber closes $65M Series B led by Eight Roads, Balderton -- of our three rounds, this one took me the longest to understand. This essay from Tomasz Tunguz, which is good. by Equity

9 min listen

Equity Shot: Our favorite startups from YC Demo Day: Yep, it's another Equity Shot. We're back. And then we're going to be back on Friday. Because we can't stop talking about the biggest news week in the world of startups and venture capital in some time. Before we start, shoutout to the NBA for the growing, wildcat strike to protest racist police violence in America. Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming. This time 'round Natasha and your humble servant were joined by Lucas Matney, a member of the TechCrunch reporting team and a first-timer on Equity. Where's he been all this time? Covering all sorts of things, including VR startups for the publication. He was also a big part of our coverage of both days of Demo Day, making him a perfect fit for this episode. Danny was given a break to sit at home, play board games, and iron his favorite sweatshirt. He's back Friday morning. In case you've missed the words, here's what we wrote this week on the subject: All the Day One by Equity

24 min listen

A faster, easier, cheaper way of going public: This is the fourth episode of the week, pushing our production calendar to the test. Happily we've managed to hold it together amidst the news deluge that the last few days have brought. It was a good week for our scheduling change, with the main episode of the show coming to you on Thursday afternoon versus Friday morning. Change is good. But unchanging this time around was our hosting lineup, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself yammering with Chris Gates on the mix. Here's what we got into: The CEO of TikTok is out, bids are swirling, and whom will wind up owning a piece of all of TikTok's global operations is not clear. Walmart is in the mix, apparently, which feels very 2020. The New York Stock Exchange has gotten approval from the SEC for a new type of direct listing, one in which the company going public can sell a bloc of shares during the normal price discovery process. This means that all the banker-faff of s by Equity

30 min listen

Equity Monday 08/31: This weekend was a welcome reprieve from last week's insane news cycle inside the world of technology and money. If you are still catching your breath from the Great IPO Wave of last Monday, we feel you. Here's what we got into this morning: The TikTok sale could be in trouble, this time due to China changing its rules on sales of tech firms that have certain algorithms. TikTok parent company Bytedance intends to comply with the rules, but what impact the news could have the sale of the social service is unclear as of yet, though the developments are not good if you were in favor of a deal. American tech shares are set to rise once again after setting records last week. Equity is back on YouTube, hell yeah! From the weekend: Medium's growth in both traffic (pageviews) and income (paying subscribers) is super impressive according to its latest reporting. And the publishing platform and media company is doubling-down on product to fend off upstarts like the popular by Equity

9 min listen

Edtech is the new SaaS: The whole crew was back, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself chattering with Chris Gates behind the scenes making it all work. An extra shoutout to Natasha this week as we spent a lot of time talking about edtech, a category that she spearheads for us and has brought to the show. It's a big deal! We're on YouTube now, don't forget, and with that, let's get into the news: Climax Foods raised $7.5 million to help fuel its work to develop alt-foods that are not animal-based. The Equity crew votes that this is a tasty deal. And, Capchase has raised $4.6 million to help cash-out SaaS contracts ahead of their real revenue accrual. Our read is that more financing options for SaaS companies will lead to lower costs of capital for those startups that want it. And, the Envision Accelerator made it through batch one and is on to batch two. Then we chatted about edtech, with Natasha talking us through Owl Ventures raising huge new funds, Course Hero ext by Equity

38 min listen

Schools are closing their doors, but OpenDoor isn’t: This week Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and myself hosted a live taping at Disrupt for a digital reception. It was good fun, though of course we're looking forward to bringing the live show back to the conference next year, vaccine allowing. Thankfully we had Chris Gates behind the scenes tweaking the dials, Alexandra Ames fitting us into the program, and some folks to watch live. What did we talk about? All of this (and some very, very bad jokes): by Equity

30 min listen

Equity Monday 09/14: What a weekend behind us, and what a week ahead. Disrupt kicks off today, so the TechCrunch crew is busy as heck getting all the final touches put on. Snag a ticket here and we will see you soon. On the podcast this morning: Stocks are set to open sharply higher as we hit record, a good and welcome comeback for investors in both private and public tech companies. The NVIDIA-ARM deal is finally a go, so we can put the entire saga to rest at last. All things TikTok: Microsoft losing the deal, Oracle possibly winning the deal, the Chinese government saying no to the whole affair, and the Chinese government only saying no to part of the deal? What is clear is that the deal is under pressure to happen and not to happen. We'll know more soon. Descartes Underwriting raised $18.5 million for its insurtech solution, while Xometry raised $75 million in a Series E for offshore manufacturing in factories with spare capacity. GoJek and Grab may merge. And, finally, the CBP is by Equity

9 min listen

Tech optimism...in this economy?: Right, here's what Natasha, Danny, and your humble servant got into this week: The huge COVID-related hit that public markets took this week, with tech getting hit extra hard. An antitrust brouhaha! As the Vista-Plaid deal and others gets a hard look, we wondered what it could all mean for startups were a bit more suited for M&A than an IPO. Up next we dug into how founders are raising money before they even quit their jobs, a trend that Natasha is digging into. From there it was a Danny segment, riffing on his 2020s piece, and dive into where he sees the most ripe chances for startups to truly change the world. We just hope the capital follows the opportunities. Then it was time to talk accelerators, with Natasha detailing on the Indie Bio class, and my taking of the show through some recent Techstars companies. VCs raised too, with the three of us talking about The Engine and Impact America raising fresh new funds. And then we chatted about th by Equity

33 min listen

When was the last time you worked out your soul?: The whole crew was back today, with Natasha and Danny and I gathered to parse over what was really a blast of news. Lots of startups are raising. Lots of VCs are raising. And some unicorns are shooting to go public. It's a lot to get through, but we're here to catch you up. by Equity

35 min listen

Why isn't Robinhood a verb yet?: This week Natasha Mascarenhas, Danny Crichton and your humble servant gathered to chat through a host of rounds and venture capital news for your enjoyment. As a programming note, I am off next week effectively, so look for Natasha to lead on Equity Monday and the both her and Danny to rock the Thursday show. I will miss everyone. But onto the show itself, here's what we got into: by Equity

37 min listen

Equity Monday: Vaccine news scrambles the stock market, shakes up startups: here's what's on today's show: Joe Biden was elected President and the stock market is not mad about divided government. Positive vaccine news sent many stocks sharply higher this morning, but not all. Some pandemic-favored tech companies instantly dropped double-digit percentage points of value. Esign raised $151 million, showing strength in the Chinese startup market, and the esignature space. And this neat Series B for Cellwize caught our attention this morning. Finally, a warning. The stuff that is changing lately may begin to change a bit less. We've lived in the pandemic economy long enough now that it's hard to recall what life was like before. But, we'd best start remembering as there's a lot that is going to change in the next few quarters. This has been a wild to start the week, but with good news. I suppose a vaccine was always going to eventually make it to this step, but, that said, the United S by Equity

8 min listen

No-code is the new blockchain: This week Natasha was on vacation, so Danny and your humble servant had to endeavour alone. She's back next week, so we'll be back to full strength as a collective soon enough. But even with a depleted hosting crew, we had a mountain of news to get through. And to joke about, as Danny was in the mood for a laugh. Here's the rundown: by Equity

39 min listen

A tale of two direct listings: Two direct listings in one day. Lots to talk about. Asana started trading just a bit after noon Eastern today, quickly zooming to roughly about $29 a share in early trading this afternoon. Meanwhile, Palantir is running like a herd of bulls straight out of the gate, jumping to almost $11 a share in the first trades — a first day jump of nearly 50%. by Equity

12 min listen

Equity Shot: Salesforce's $27.7 billion-dollar Slack message: Welcome to an Equity Shot all about the huge, and hugely interesting Salesforce-Slack deal, in which the enterprise social company will be subsumed for the mere price of $27.7 billion. by Equity

20 min listen

Equity Monday 10/12: So, what was on our minds this morning? Headlines: The Twilio-Segment deal is real, happening, and is priced about where we expected. Big names in the ex-China Internet want to make encryption worse. And, how the United States government would break up Google is becoming clearer by the week. On the Twilio Segment deal, as TechCrunch and Forbes anticipated, the transaction came in around $3.2 billion, forming something of a API monster from their combined form. As we noted on the show, a lot of investors made a mint from the transaction. Airkit has raised $28 million while in stealth since 2017. What does it do? Per Forbes, it's a "low-code platform" that wants to "improve customer engagement." That's notably similar to what Segment does. Flash Express raised $200 million, as the on-demand and delivery spaces stay hot. And Razorpay raised $100 million at a valuation of $1 billion, meaning that we have just witnessed the birth of yet another fintech unicorn. And, fin by Equity

8 min listen

Equity Monday 09/28: This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. I subbed in for Alex this week, so send your love over to the show on Twitter here and fan mail to me right here. Also, don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode. This week, we couldn't help but weigh into the latest TikTok drama, but we got into why it's worth following these budgets and moves (and a whole host of other fascinating news): by Equity

11 min listen

Equity Monday on Tuesday 09/08: This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and myself here, and don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode. Headline roundup: TikTok's parent will pay an irregular bonus to staff, a move that is causing ripples as Bytedance's social service finds itself an international political football. Reed Hastings is not big on working from home. And China's fight with Australia is escalating, again showing how willing China is to become an ostracized internationally; in business terms this makes the India market more important to tech companies. New IPO filings are out from both JFrog and Sumo Logic. We're going for a dive soon, but the short riff is that JFrog wants up to $37 per share, valuing it at more than $3 billion while Sumo Logic wants $21 per s by Equity

9 min listen

Equity Monday: HungryPanda raises $70M, trade tensions, and cross-border VC: Right, now through the first of America's national Q4 feast days, it's time to get back to business. Namely, the business of VC and startups. Here's what we got into this morning: by Equity

8 min listen

Equity Monday 09/21: What a busy morning. We had to cover TikTok. We had to talk VC rounds. So, this is what we got up to: US tech stocks are poised to sell off further this morning. The Oracle-TikTok-Walmart-ByteDance deal is either coming into focus, or a period of even less clarity. It's hard to tell. Nikola founder Trevor Milton is leaving the board of his own company in the wake of fraud allegations. Shares of the company are sharply lower in pre-market trading. Turning to TikTok, this primer represents the best over-the-weekend roundup that we could find. But, of course, things are still breaking as we come to print. Since recording, Oracle has said that "upon creation of TikTok Global, Oracle/Walmart will make their investment and the TikTok Global shares will be distributed to their owners, Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global." And, President Trump said this morning that China has to give up control of TikTok or the deal is off. by Equity

9 min listen

Equity Tuesday: Everyone's raising money, and Wrike exits yet again: This is Equity (Monday) Tuesday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. by Equity

8 min listen

Warren Buffett invests in an unprofitable business: The whole crew was back, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself chattering, and Chris Gates behind the scenes tweaking the dials as always. This week was a real team effort as we are heading into the maw of Disrupt -- more here, see you there -- but there was a lot of news all the same. by Equity

33 min listen

Equity Shot: The DoJ, Google, and the suit could mean for startups: It's a big day in tech because the US Federal Government is going after Google on anti-competitive grounds. Sure, the timing appears crassly political and the case is not picking up huge plaudits thus far for its air-tightness, but that doesn't mean we can ignore it. by Equity

12 min listen

Equity Monday 10/19: American equities are set to rise, which is good news for the startup-VC world as it means that the current up-cycle will continue. But the good public market is not landing evenly, as Europe sees its VC-backed IPO tally lag the rest of the world. by Equity

9 min listen

Equity Monday: SAP’s warning, and IPO updates for both Airbnb and Databricks: This was a busy morning, with lots to talk about it. Here’s what we got into: Headlines this morning that caught our eye included falling global stock markets in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases; SAP torched tens of billions of market cap by missing earnings expectations and cutting its forecast; and Ant Group will raise a bajillion dollars in its impending IPO. by Equity

8 min listen

What if the kernel is corrupt?: This week, Alex is on a much deserved vacation (but not from Twitter, it seems) so Danny Crichton and I chatted through the news and happenings of the week. Somehow we winded our way through the latest tech controversies, gave Chris Wallace a shout out, and ended with some funding rounds. I’ll be out next week so don’t miss me too much, but expect the entire Equity team to be back full-speed in mid-October. Thanks, as always, to our producer Chris Gates for his patience and diligence. by Equity

35 min listen

Quibi’s shortform life: The fall of Quibi, and who lost money in the mix. TechCrunch has a bit more on the video service's downfall here. The Netflix quarter, and why its shares lost ground after its report. The Quibi-Netflix stories show that it's not smooth sailing in the market for online video. If Netflix stumbled, Snap soared with stronger-than-expected growth. The company still loses lots of money, but it's getting closer to reasonable results, and has lots of cash. Then we turned to a few media startups that raised, including $4 million for Stir and $2.5 million for Quake. Quake the podcasting company, mind, not the excellent FPS. Next was a handful of housing rounds, including the very neat Abodu and the somewhat controversial RVshare, which split the three of us about whether or not it was going to work out. Then we had some great reporting from Natasha to parse through, including her piece on startup hacker houses, and her report on a new women-focused accelerator class. by Equity

36 min listen

Fintech unicorn Affirm has a lot of eggs in one basket: Affirm has filed to go public! The fintech unicorn is big, growing, and losing less money over time. We were pretty impressed in our first look. Then, with a bit more time, we dug deeper and found a weakness or two. Still, Affirm is heading public and not in poor shape. Airbnb filed, and we jumped into an Equity Shot as fast as we could on Tuesday to get our minds around the news. Since then, Danny dug through the venture capital winners circle -- a surprisingly small subset of firms! -- and we also got into some questions that I had about the company's finances. Robinhood is said to have an IPO in the books, so we talked a bit about what we know concerning its Q3 growth. And then there was edtech, as always. This week we talked about Tencent backing Udemy, Duolingo raising again, and Transfr picking up a Series A that we thought was super interesting. Danny wanted to talk about the Trust & Will Series A. We tried to not make by Equity

31 min listen

Equity Monday 10/05: Starting the day American stocks are set to rise despite the country's president spending the weekend in a military hospital to combat his COVID-19 infection. The weekend itself was marked with national turmoil as information was incomplete, and shifting when it came to the health of the current administration. by Equity

8 min listen

Equity Monday: Edtech and insurtech stay red-hot: This morning was a somewhat odd episode of our Monday show, in that the American election is tomorrow. Still, some things happened. So, here they are: Match, Uber, Alibaba, Square, Dropbox, EA, and Roku are expected to report earnings this week. The UK's venture capital industry is even less focused on investing in diverse founders than you thought, with our own Natasha Lomas reporting that "all-ethnic teams received an average of just 1.7% of the venture capital investments made at seed, early and late stage" between 2009 and 2019. The edtech boom is lifting all boats, it seems, not just those that belong to startups. Chegg's growth is picking up media attention. Marshmallow raised $30 million for its auto-insurtech product. The insurtech market is super hot these days, after the Lemonade and Root IPOs. Tencent led $50 million into Zego, another company that wants to provide video communications services to other companies. Warre by Equity

8 min listen

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Equity Monday: Crypto hacks and a scuttled AI IPO

Equity Monday: Crypto hacks and a scuttled AI IPO

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