Equity Monday: Uber-Postmates is announced, three funding rounds, and narrative construction

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

This is Equity Monday, our week-starting primer in which we go over the latest news, dig into the week ahead, talk about some neat funding rounds, and dive into the latest big news from the startup world. (You can follow the show on Twitter here, and myself here, if you are so inclined! Don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode as well. All the cool kids are doing it.)

What a weekend! After some quiet, somewhat dull off-week periods, this weekend brought us twists and turns that were good fun. Most dealt with a possible Uber -Postmates tie up, so we wrote the show to talk about the transaction’s unconfirmed nature.

Then, it got confirmed. So, here’s the second edition of today’s Equity Monday, recast due to the deal’s official nature:

• Uber will buy Postmates for $2.65 billion in an all-stock transaction. Uber shares were up this morning ahead of the open on the wings of the rumor — wings that beat even harder after the deal was confirmed. Uber investors seem pleased, for now, that after losing out on GrubHub their company has managed to buy a smaller player. Doing so may give Uber more leverage over restaurants and drivers, and boost Uber’s H2 2020 revenue numbers that will still be impacted by COVID-19 and its resulting economic impacts.
• Q3 earnings don’t kick off for tech and other VC-backed companies for a bit, and heading into the week the public markets are up. Despite all the bad news. The inverse correlation between bad news (short-term, economic), and stock market gains is slowly moving from joke to sordid reality.
• This week we’re keeping tabs on US and Chinese economic data, the geopolitical situation in Hong Kong and the India-China border, and Q2 VC data as it comes out.
• We also dug into three funding rounds this morning, detailing Scalefast raising $22 million, DigniFi raising $14 million, and AirVet raising $14 million as well. More international rounds to come, we promise.

We wrapped this morning wondering if Postmates can provide a narrative boost to Uber, a company that isn’t going to have the best Q2 numbers in its history. With Postmates tucked under its arm going into the earnings call, Uber can double-down on its Uber Eats narrative, flash Postmates around the room, and promise that Rides data will get better as well.

Perhaps that would be enough?