Hello and welcome back to Equity, the Tech Ranch Podcast where we unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines.

This is Alex and it is Tuesday, May 31st, 2022.

Now, why is it not Monday, you ask?

Well, it's because yesterday was a holiday here in America and so we're talking on Tuesday

But there is much to get through so strap in let's have some fun

All right taking a look at the global markets over in Asia. Chinese stocks are up, Japanese stocks are down. In Europe, I would say shares are mostly lower today by My Reed, and here in the US shares are set to fall in pre-market trading.

But don't get too sad, there is better news over in crypto land.

Key digital assets saw their value rise over the long weekend.

Just how far, well, Bitcoin is now up over 8% in the last week,

or back to over $31,000 per coin, if you care for that number.

And Ether, the token associated with the Ethereum blockchain, is back to nearly $2,000.

So a little bit of good news there, if you're a cryptohead, if you own stocks, well, sorry. Now I have been curious about the prospects of startup M&A this year for some time.

Why? Well, essentially, given changing market conditions,

it seems likely that some startups are not going to be able to raise money at

attractive prices this year if they need it.

So they will seek other routes.

For example, they might sell to a larger company.

Now initially I noodled on this with my colleague Anna Haim from the perspective of corporate venture capital or CVC.

Basically, given how much CVC activity we saw in recent quarters,

it seemed like a host of startups now had close links to major corporates that might go shopping

as startup prices fell. But there's actually more afoot. A recent CNBC story brought up another

angle to the story. Essentially, the crypto market is taking stock of itself once again after a

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