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

unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines. My name is Alex and I'm

joined as always by my dear partner in crime, Mary Ann Azvedo, senior reporter on the FinTech Beat,

the Angel of Austin, the Tyrants of Texas,

how are you?

I love that.

Thank you, Alex, I'm good.

I'm feeling a little, I don't know,

sentimental about this being our official last

recording of the year yes and we want to talk about that because this is the last

Friday news roundup we are going to have for you But we all know that during the holidays you often have family around and that means you need to take breaks to get away from said family so equity has a full slate for you through the rest of the year. We are not just going to give up and do

reruns like some shows do. No, Equity has prepared lots of stuff for you.

We're going to have look-back episodes, predictions episodes,

in interviews with founders and VCs.

We've dragged in some of our Tech Orange colleagues.

We are really excited about what we've put together for you.

And if we have sounded a little bit hoarse lately,

it's because we've been doing a lot of extra work to make sure that you are

entertained all throughout the end of December. But Marianne this is our last news roundup so

what are we going to talk about today? Well deals of the week is preview and verve motion.

Then we are going to look at what the hell is going on in France and why is it blowing up

and then why mega deals could be inflating the overall AI funding figures.

...