Fundings and Exits

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It doesn’t feel like a short week, does it? Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann got on the mic to bring an especially packed episode full of big news, fire transitions and even a

The market has cooled on SPACs, but Polestar has the network and know-how Jaclyn Trop 7 hours Polestar, the EV subbrand from Volvo and Geely that launched last week on the Nasdaq at a $20 billion valuation, didn’t earn its $PSNY ticker by taking the traditional route toward an IPO. With the ringing of the

I don’t know what is going on in the startup market and it’s a bit of a pain in the ass. The larger American economy, home to the largest technology startup and venture capital markets in the world, could be in a recession right now. We don’t know. To reach a technical recession, we need

From a global perspective, the venture capital market for startup investment is slowing. Data shows that venture investment totals are falling, with the second quarter adding to declines seen in the first quarter of this year. After reaching a peak in late 2021, startups are seeing private-market-focused wallets close just a bit — even as

According to the World Bank, Indonesia produces 4.8 million tons of plastic waste each year that is “mismanaged”—meaning it ends up uncollected, chucked into dumpsites or leaked from improperly managed landfills. Octopus wants to reduce that number with a platform that makes it easier to collect back waste products from consumers and recycle it into

The startup market is global in footprint, varied in focus, diverse in business model and constantly evolving. The venture capital market, meanwhile, is slower to molt, but it’s also changed in the last decade. Startups and their financial backers went a bit nuts last year, raising too much money, often at unsustainable prices. We’re now watching

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: Why is tech full of copycats, and what’s the

South Korean AI chip developer Rebellions has raised a $22.8 million (30 million KRW) extension to its Series A financing from a strategic investor KT, one of the largest telecom companies in South Korea.  Last month, TechCrunch reported on Rebellions closing on $50 million in funding that valued the company at an estimated $283 million. At

Voyantis, a startup developing tools to estimate a customer’s lifetime value, today emerged from stealth with $19 million in seed funding from Target Global, Square Peg, Schusterman Family Investments, Kaedan Capital and Operator Partners. CEO Ido Wiesenberg tells TechCrunch that the funds will be used to expand Voyantis’ product offering and support more use cases

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. We are back on Tuesday, as the United States was off yesterday. So a day late, but hopefully not a dollar

Live in India, Singapore-based MarketWolf has plans to introduce stock trading to first-time investors in more markets. The platform announced today it has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Singaporean venture capital firm Jungle Ventures and Mumbai-based Dream Capital. Returning investors 9Unicorns, iSeed, Crescent and Riverwalk also participated. This brings MarketWolf’s total

As the crypto markets continue to trend downward, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, FTX, remains undeterred. “Our priorities have not changed,” Mark Wetjen, head of policy and regulatory strategy at FTX, told TechCrunch. “Markets will do what they do, but the reality is that the digital asset marketplace and digital asset ecosystem, we believe, is

Most real estate agents charge a commission — in many cases up to 6% of the sale price of a home — for listing and selling a house on behalf of a homeowner. For a home that sells for about $170,000, this commission totals just over $10,000. For a home that sells for $500,000, it

Snowplow, a platform designed to create data for AI and business intelligence applications, today announced that it raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by NEA, Snowplow investors, Atlantic Bridge and MMC. Co-founder and CEO Alex Dean said that the new cash will enable Snowplow to grow its team, establish a second

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This was a live week on the podcast, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex and Natasha and Grace teamed up with the fine audio and visual folks from our mothership Yahoo to not

It may feel like it’s been a few years since OpenSea announced the funding round that pushed its valuation to the $13 billion mark. It was January. At the time, this column dug into the company’s financial performance and came to a number of conclusions, primarily that the company was generating a lot of revenue.

Venture capital investments may be slower, but that seems to be giving venture capital firms some time to go out and raise funds of their own. Sequoia Capital is the latest to reportedly be raising two new U.S.-focused funds, valued at up to $2.25 billion, The Information reported earlier this week. The publication reported that

Queenly, a startup building a garment marketplace aimed at dressing women for formal events, announced this morning that it has purchased Mi Padrino, a company built to serve the quinceañera market. The two companies’ overlap is obvious: Quinceañeras, events where girls celebrate their 15th birthday with a large event and ornate garb, is an event

Somehow June is over in just a few hours, meaning that we are trotting toward the third quarter’s starting line. Leaving aside the uncomfortably rapid pace at which time is flying past us, entering a new financial reporting period is an excellent moment to pause, reflect and work out the key questions for the upcoming

Equity service platform Carta has acquired Vauban, an online platform that helps investors back private companies from end to end. As first reported by The Information, the deal was framed by Carta as a way to support investors of all sizes, from the sub-million-dollar level into the billions of dollars worth of dry powder. Carta

Aiming to compete with Bilt in the nascent property renter rewards market, Stake, a startup that provides cash back and banking services to renters, today announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A round led by RET Ventures’ new RET Ventures ESG Fund. Enterprise Community Partners, Hometeam Ventures, Operator Stack, Shadow Ventures, Olive

New data indicates that startups are laying off more staff. That said, the pace of layoffs is modest compared with the early-2020 economic correction. As COVID locked down many nations for the first time, the global economy shuddered and startups were left to deal with an immensely changed world effectively overnight. Layoffs at companies like

There is a moment from around April 2021 that Pilar Johnson thinks about often. She was scared and nervous. The Houston native grew up in a low-income neighborhood and had no experience in venture capital. As she waded into the industry, imposter syndrome frequently crept in. Then, she and her team at Debut Capital raised

Selling your company — or not selling your company — is a complicated decision. Price, timing, pride, and a host of other factors play into the decision. Hell, you might simply enjoy running the business, be it a startup, unicorn, or public-market behemoth. Sometimes the decision is made for a company’s leadership team. Zendesk’s work

Birdie, a UK-based caretech software-as-a-service maker, has closed a $30 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Sofina, with Omers Ventures and Index Ventures also participating — the latter reupping its backing after leading Birdie’s Series A last year. Max Parmentier, co-founder and CEO of Birdie, said the latest tranche of funding will

Data centers with servers attached to solid-state drives (SSDs) can suffer from an imbalance of storage and compute. Either there’s not enough processing power to go around, or physical storage limits get in the way of data transfers, Lightbits Labs CEO Eran Kirzner explains to TechCrunch. “Since its inception, NVMe has been revolutionizing the data

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. This week we are not recording on a Tuesday as it’s a regular week. Though we would add that Equity will

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) products have become incredibly popular with users, and both startups and tech behemoths such as Apple have taken notice. But BNPL companies have attracted some controversy, too, for encouraging people who are less financially secure to take on debt without fully explaining the associated risks. Kasheesh, a fintech startup that’s

Zomato has acquired Blinkit, a struggling 10-minute grocery delivery startup, in a $568.1 million all-stock deal as the loss-making food delivery firm looks to broaden its offerings at a time when its shares are trading far below last year’s debut price and less than half of the all-time highs. The Gurgaon-headquartered firm — which reached

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today Natasha and Alex were on the mics, kicking back and riffing through the biggest technology stories of the week. Our dear Mary Ann was off this week, but will be back in short order. What did we