Wordle's Blizzard of transparency

Equity

TechCrunch

Entrepreneurship, Business News, News, Business, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite the fact that it is a holiday week here in the United States, tech news was, well, as nuts as it usually is. At this point anything else would be a shock. So what did we get to? All of this and more: Rebundle's incredibly neat startup idea, and funding round. We love a Midwest startup here on the show thanks to Alex's roots, which means that when we got to talk about banana fiber, hair extensions, venture capital, and St. Louis all at once, we were hype. Wheel reinvented itself again with a $150 million Series C, while Gale Health played matchmaker with understaffed shifts and nurses. Plaid's buy of Cognito, a fintech startup, for around $250 million. The deal had us thinking about the power of APIs, the future of fintech, and why we don't hear about more startup M&A. Part of the why to that question could be anti-trust pressures, the sort of which that Microsoft is going to hit with its purchase attempt of Activision Blizzard, a gaming company. Microsoft already owns several gaming studios (Mojang, Bethesda), its own gaming platform (Xbox), and has long owned and operated the key PC gaming operating system (Windows). How much more does it need to own? We also touched on Wordle, free gaming, and the open web in our gaming chat, so lots to unpack there, frankly! Send us your go-to starter word. Finally, no time like the present to return to no code. At times tech is a bunch of shiny rebrands, but at other times, basic angles become non-negotiable strategies. No code, like AI and ML, is one of them. And companies like Walnut and Softr are snapping up the resulting rewards. Whew! What a week. If you are tired already, do not look at the calendar. It will only terrify you. 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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0:16.0	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, I'm a writer here at Tech Ranch and I am joined by the absolute best, the cream of the crop, I have Natasha and was going to see her.
0:22.0	Natasha, hello, hello, the bar across the street is fine. I have Natasha in Las Guanes here. Natasha. Hello. Hello.
0:24.0	The bar across the street is finally quieted down,
0:26.0	so I think I can focus on the show.
0:29.0	It's 11.45 a.m. in San Francisco.
0:32.0	I can't ask you which bar it is, but is it a 45 a in Texas. Actually pretty good Alex. How are you? I've had better weeks and it's
0:44.9	snowing. So I'm just glad that we are here together to have a moment to have a
0:48.6	chat and get through a mountain of tech news because it has been a simply bonkers
0:52.4	busy week even for a holiday week
0:54.1	so everyone we are going to talk about rebuttal one of the coolest rounds we've heard in some time
0:58.4	We're going to talk about telehealth through the lens of funding rounds for wheel and
1:01.8	Gail health care talk about Plaid acquisitions, FinTech, and where that business is going.
1:06.6	Then we're going to riff on Wirtle and also say the word Wortle several times.
1:10.6	Talk about the Blizzard Microsoft Deal and why that shouldn't happen and then we're
1:13.7	going to wrap with no codes to the lens of walnut and a company called softer.
1:17.4	Whoo, it's going to be a lot. Mary Ann, where should we start?
1:21.2	Well, why don't we start with Re-Bundle? I think this is a really interesting company. It's a startup out of St. Louis, female lead, and they raised 1.4 million dollars for plant-based hair extensions. I think this is a huge market. I know so
1:34.9	many women who get hair extensions and I've never personally heard of plant-based
1:39.1	ones. I think they use banana fiber to make theirs. So you interviewed them. Tell us more, Alex. I found them via
1:45.5	M25, which led their pre-seed round. I know the guys over at M25, guys and gals over at M25 pretty well,
1:51.5	and they're a Midwest focused venture capital fund and
1:54.4	because my parents are from Kansas City, Missouri I have Midwest routes and I went to
	...

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