Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week Matthew Lynley and Alex Wilhelm were joined by 500 Startups CEO Christine Tsai for what turned out to be a super packed episode.
We kicked off with the latest from Slack: $400 million new dollars at a shiny, new $7 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch. The new capital comes after the firm raised a huge sum last year from SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
We dug into why the company would raise again, and what competitors it has left after the Atlassian deal.
Next up, two earnings reports. Continuing our tradition of keeping tabs on recent tech IPOs, we talked through Snap and Dropbox which reported earnings this week. Both lost ground after doing so. Ironically, they each beat financial expectations.
Snap ended up dropping value over a DAU decline, and Dropbox’s fall is still a bit undetermined. But by the time this episode ships, perhaps the market will have figured it out.
Next up we scrolled through the key reviews of the commercially available Magic Leap headset that is out at last. It’s a bit pricey, and a bit not-what-people-expected, but the well-funded startup seems to have avoided a complete miss. Its second-generation device may prove to be more impactful.
And finally, big news from China. As has become the norm on Equity, a few big Chinese rounds captivated us. This time it was the Manbang news, and what’s going on at Bytedance.
All that and we’ll be back in a week’s time. Stay cool!
Source: TechCrunch
