Are megafunds squeezing out small VCs and distorting the seed market?

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Here’s what we got into: Deals of the Week: Ruth Foxe Blader is leaving Anthemis, albeit slowly; Exponent has a second fund set up, but without a pure fintech focus; and Alex wanted to talk about why 2024 could be a pretty alright year for crypto. Layoffs, shutdowns: Frontdesk laid off 200 people and is shutting down, which makes for a good conversation about its business model. Countdown Capital is also throwing in the towel, due in part to larger multi-stage funds inflating the entry point for hot seed deals. It’s a trend worth keeping an eye on. Helping one another: Israel is working to support its startup industry which has been disrupted by the Israel-Hamas war, and how the new Tech for Palestine group was formed. And that’s Equity for this week! We’ll be back on Monday! Connect with Equity on X and Threads @EquityPod, and keep up with all of TechCrunch's podcasts @TechCrunchPods on TikTok. For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more! 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 the nuance behind the headlines. This is January 5th
0:19.7	2024. My name is Alex. I'm joined by my bestie. It's Marianne asoveto.
0:24.1	Marianne hello. Welcome to the new year.
0:26.6	Yes, I am actually really excited about 2024.
0:29.9	Past couple of years were a little bit rough personally but I just feel good
0:34.8	about this year in general I think it's it's going to be a little bit more of a
0:38.4	we're going to see more positive stuff happening in general this year.
0:42.8	Well, now you've jinxed it.
0:44.0	Oh gosh.
0:45.0	Now we're gonna get hit by an asteroid.
0:46.1	Oh gosh.
0:47.1	When that happens, you can play Marianne.
0:48.3	It's all my fault if that happens.
0:49.7	Oh no, don't be optimistic.
0:51.1	No, I'm actually, I'm actually entirely on board with you and one of our stories on the show today does deal with a dose of optimism from the Tech Runch crew so we will talk about that in a little bit but on today's show with that positive vibe, we are going to talk about
1:04.1	in our deals of the week what's going on with Fox Capital and Exponent, and then corporate
1:09.4	Venture Capital's role in a potential crypto rebound.
1:12.8	That is the positive note that I can't wait to bring up.
1:15.2	Then we do turn the page a little bit
1:16.7	and talk about some downsides,
1:18.3	talking about layoffs and shutdowns at Front Desk
	...

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