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Equity

Acquisitions are heating up, and Mercury eyes the fintech crown

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2372 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome back to Equity a podcast about the business of startups where we

0:15.3

unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines today is May 10th I'm

0:20.0

Marianne Asavito and joining me as senior TC reporter Alex Wilhelm

0:24.7

Alex dare I ask how are you today?

0:28.3

Well I feel like someone has tried to kill me and then reassembled me using the old

0:32.2

spare parts that don't fit together.

0:34.0

I have COVID for the first time that I know of.

0:37.0

So if I sound like I'm a cadaver, accurate.

0:41.0

But I was not going to miss the show.

0:42.4

I'm here. I'm excited.

0:43.7

Yay, equity.

0:44.7

What a trooper, Alex, uh, sucks.

0:48.0

Yeah. Well, we're also joined by Tech Crunch senior reporter and editor Kirsten Kursk.

0:53.2

Kirsten, how are you presumably better than Alex?

0:56.6

I am living the dream and not with COVID so happy,

1:00.7

but feeling very empathetic towards Alex.

1:04.8

I have a question about that because I don't go places much, so I haven't had COVID yet.

1:10.0

So this is my first time.

1:11.0

Have you guys had COVID?

1:13.3

Once.

1:14.3

Once, okay.

1:14.9

I have not and I travel all the time.

...

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