Equity

The hardware world had a brutal week, with iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes all filing for bankruptcy.  Each company faces its own mix of tariff pressures, supply chain issues, and shifting markets, but together they tell a larger story about the challenges of building physical products in an era of global trade tensions and cheap overseas competition. From the Roomba maker that almost got acquired by Amazon to the e-bike company that couldn't escape its Chinese supply chain, this week's bankruptcies are a warning sign for hardware startups everywhere.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Anthony Ha, Rebecca Bellan, and Sean O'Kane discuss what went wrong for three once-promising hardware companies, plus Amazon's massive OpenAI bet and Trump's new approach to AI regulation.  Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including:  How "slop" became Merriam-Webster's word of the year — and why it's become bigger than just AI-generated content  Why Databricks raised $1

Jiten Behl, partner at Eclipse Ventures and former chief growth officer at Rivian, thinks we're entering an era of major re-industrialization in the US — one where factories run on AI-powered robots, not cheap overseas labor.   Behl, who helped scale Rivian from a conference room idea in 2015 to a publicly traded EV maker, is now investing in the next wave of industrial and mobility startups, including two Rivian spinouts: Also and Mind Robotics. It's part of Eclipse's larger bet that the physical world is finally ready for the kind of disruption software saw a decade ago.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec sat down with Behl to talk about why Rivian keeps spinning out companies, what founders in the "physical world" need that software founders don't, and why automation is becoming necessary if the US wants to compete without Chinese supply chains.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why Behl looks for founders who are both "hyper-optimistic" and grounded in reality, and wh

A baby was born in a Waymo this week, and it wasn't even the first one.  What started as a novelty story quickly became a reminder of how autonomous vehicles have quietly become part of everyday life, complete with all the messiness that entails. The real coming-of-age story this week, however, wasn't happening in San Francisco's robotaxis. It was playing out in Hollywood, where Netflix made an $82 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming and studio business.    Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Anthony Ha discuss what happens when the startup that used to mail you DVDs grows up and tries to buy a legacy entertainment empire as well as the other headlines that caught their eye.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  How Boom Supersonic is selling jet engines to data centers to fund its supersonic flight dreams  Why Hinge's CEO is leaving to start an AI dating app, and whether AI can actually fix dating  The rise of AI circular deals

ElevenLabs has made a name for itself building realistic AI voices.     What started as two Polish engineers annoyed by terrible movie dubbing has grown into a profitable company now valued at $6.6 billion, doubling its valuation from just nine months ago. The company recently announced a $100 million tender offer led by Sequoia and ICONIQ, with participation from a16z and others, as its tech powers everything from Fortnite characters to customer service bots and goes toe-to-toe with OpenAI to become the default voice of AI.    Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, we’re bringing you a conversation with CEO Mati Staniszewski from this year's Disrupt, where he made a surprising admission: he thinks voice models will be commoditized in just a couple of years. So what's ElevenLabs' plan when everyone else catches up?    Listen to the full episode to hear about:   Why ElevenLabs is pivoting from just voice models to building a conversational AI agent platform  How the company is tackling deepfa

AWS announced a wave of new AI agent tools at re:Invent 2025, but can Amazon actually catch up to the AI leaders? While the cloud giant is betting big on enterprise AI with its third-gen chip and database discounts that got developers cheering, it's still fighting to prove it can compete beyond infrastructure.  This week on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into the ROI on AI agents, plus the collision course between Hollywood and generative AI, and why everyone wants their own version of Spotify Wrapped.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why Hollywood filmmakers are drawing hard lines between performance capture and AI, and another spiked attempt at AI regulation  Nothing's $5 million community funding round and whether letting consumers invest is genuine community-building or just IPO hype  Autolane's $7.4 million raise to build "air traffic control for robotaxis"  Wrapped battles from Spotify, YouTube, and others chasing their viral moment 

Tech is racing ahead while society struggles to keep up. Masha Bucher, founder and GP of Day One Ventures, built her firm around closing that gap by combining venture capital with hands-on PR to help portfolio companies not just raise money, but actually break through the noise.   Day One's been an early backer of companies like World, Superhuman, and Remote.com, with 12 of its portfolio companies hitting multibillion-dollar valuations.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Bucher to talk about why traditional PR is broken, how she picks founders, and why every startup founder now needs to be chronically online.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why Bucher thinks being a VC first makes her better at PR, and why the traditional PR model is "misaligned" for startups.  How she vets building teams and finds the “most exceptional founders.”   Why founders can't just pick one platform anymore, along with Bucher’s simple – and potentially contentious --

Vibe coding has taken the tech industry by storm, and it's not just the Lovables and Replits of the world that are winning. The startups building the infrastructure behind them are cashing in too.  Supabase, the open-source database platform that's become the backend of choice for the vibe-coding world, raised $100 million at a $5 billion valuation just months after closing $200 million at $2 billion. But co-founder and CEO Paul Copplestone has a surprising strategy: he keeps turning down million-dollar enterprise contracts, betting instead that vibe coding will birth the next generation of companies.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sat down with Copplestone to explore Supabase's rise and what it means for the database race.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why Copplestone believes "the death of Oracle won't take a generation"  The technical moonshots Supabase is funding to make Postgres even more scalable  How he decides which enterprise deals to turn down

Ten years ago, raising €1 million in Copenhagen was enough to make waves in the region’s tech scene. Today, the Nordics are turning out billion-dollar companies like Lovable — which hit $200M in revenue just 12 months after launching.    Dennis Green-Lieber, founder of AI-powered customer intelligence platform Propane, has had a front-row seat to that shift over the last 15 years. His take? The region's social safety net gives founders room to take real swings without putting their personal lives on the line, and they're accelerating faster than Silicon Valley as a result.    Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Dominic-Madori Davis caught up with Green-Lieber to talk about the Nordic startup ecosystem, from its collaborative culture to its deep tech future.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:   How Danish founders can access free quantum computing power and what that means for the region's deep tech ambitions  Why the cultural shift from "don't stick your neck out" is creating a new

AI companies are spending so much on infrastructure that Nvidia's data center business now brings in nearly $50 billion. But is this sustainable growth or just the latest tech mania? And should we even be calling it a "bubble" when the belief in AI's future is what's holding the whole ecosystem together?  This week on Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into Nvidia's massive earnings beat, the circular economy of AI infrastructure spending, and whether Jensen Huang's optimistic vision of AI agents handling everything in our daily lives can justify the investment.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Jeff Bezos newest venture, an AI startup called Project Prometheus.  Suno's $2.5 billion valuation and $200 million raise despite facing lawsuits from three major music labels and what it says about investor confidence in AI music  Waymo's expansion to new cities and approval to hit the freeways. As well as updates on Zoox and Tesla.   Nvidia's 62% year-ov

While everyone's chasing the next AI infrastructure play in San Francisco, some of the most defensible AI companies are being built by founders with deep expertise in legacy industries — and they're not getting funded. January Ventures aims to fill that gap, writing pre-seed checks for underrepresented founders transforming healthcare, manufacturing, and supply chain with AI.   At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Dominic-Madori Davis sat down with Jennifer Neundorfer, Co-Founder and General Partner at January Ventures, for a live episode of Equity. The pair dug into how early-stage investing is changing in the age of AI and why building different networks matters.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:   How AI is enabling pre-seed founders to do far more with less capital, and what that means for proof points at the earliest stages  Why January looks for founders building for where the technology is going, not where it is today, and how market expertise is becoming a critical moat  The st

TechCrunch has new podcast! Build Mode brings you candid startup wisdom from the people who build, break, and build again. Build Mode is hosted by our very own Startup Battlefield Editor, Isabelle Johannessen who is joined by founders, investors, and operators to dig into the uncomfortable truths about startup life. Think cap table drama, co-founder breakups, and pivot panic.We're sharing their first episode with Forethought AI co-founder, Deon Nicholas as a weekend bonus to your feed. He shares how he built a company that puts customers (not hype) at the center and unpacks his “7-Failure Rule,” the early experiments that shaped Forethought’s success. Episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday, and you can subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to check out the video version on TechCrunch’s YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that $580 billion will be spent globally on AI data centers in 2025 alone. This is $40 billion more than will be spent on new oil supplies — leading us to conclude that data centers are the new oil fields. But is this a net positive for the environment or just a different kind of resource drain?  On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Rebecca Bellan dig into what this spending shift means for the energy grid, climate tech, and whether taxpayers should be footing the bill for Big Tech's infrastructure ambitions.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  The anti-AI disclaimer at the end of Pluribus  Israeli AI agent startup Wonderful's massive $100 million Series A, and why customer service might be the killer app for AI agents  Swedish autonomous vehicle company Einride's SPAC deal — yes, SPACs are back — and whether its electric truck business can carry the autonomous pod dream  Why OpenAI

Many see OpenAI as the ChatGPT company while rivals like Anthropic and Cohere eye the enterprise space. Marc Manara, OpenAI's head of startups, says the reality looks different: AI-native companies are hitting $200 million in ARR, and product cycles have shrunk from two-week sprints to single days.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Russell Brandom sat down with Manara at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 to explore how OpenAI is serving the startups building on its platform.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  The shift from two-week sprints to one-day development cycles, and what that means for how startups should structure their engineering teams  Why some startups are customizing models for specific tasks in healthcare, finance, and other verticals that seemed out of reach  Where AI still hasn't fully integrated with companies, and why longer-horizon autonomous tasks remain the next frontier for both models and startups  Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify

SoftBank and OpenAI announced a new 50-50 joint venture this week to sell enterprise AI tools in Japan under the brand "Crystal Intelligence." On paper, it's a straightforward international expansion deal. But SoftBank’s role as a major investor in OpenAI is raising questions about whether AI's biggest deals are creating real economic value or just moving money in circles.  On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha and AI editor Russell Brandom break down why this deal has people skeptical, and what it signals about the sustainability of AI's current investment model.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Andreessen Horowitz’s move to shut down its Talent x Opportunity fund, and the Equity crew’s take on the firm's explanation  What former FTC chair Lina Khan’s role in NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's transition team could mean for Big Tech, ride-hailing, and AVs  What Box CEO Aaron Levie had to say about whether we're in an AI bubble at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, 

Even Rogers spent a decade as an Air Force weapons officer watching China and Russia build space weapons while the U.S. had "nothing in our arsenal." So he left the military to solve the problem himself.  Now, as co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, he's building the first exclusively defense-focused space superiority company, developing autonomous spacecraft, sensors, and software designed specifically for military engagements in orbit. With $418 million raised and a growing team, Rogers is racing to field capabilities the Space Force desperately needs.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Rogers to explore the emerging business of space defense and why the U.S. is playing catch-up.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  How the space industry has shifted away from a service domain as threats in space evolve, and what other countries are already deploying.  The biggest bottleneck slowing down space defense development.  How True Anomaly's "Jackal" sp

The Equity crew was live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025! Hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha took over the Builders Stage on Monday morning to kick off the event with the question everyone's asking: are we in an AI bubble?  Between valuations that have tripled in months, $300M seed rounds, and $100B commitments flying around, the money is moving fast — maybe too fast. The Equity team breaks down what peak bubble looks like, where the actual business models are (spoiler: a lot of companies are betting on AI datacenters), and why some founders are betting against the scaling race entirely.  Listen to the full episode to hear:  Why this feels like peak bubble territory, and what the wildest funding rounds of the past month tell us about where AI is headed  How the AI data center boom is reshaping infrastructure investing, and which unexpected players are getting in on the action  Why Cohere's former AI research lead is going against the grain and betting against the scaling race 

After a small startup exit and being turned down by every VC firm he applied to, Tim Chen began angel investing and eventually stumbled into raising his own fund.   Now, as the solo investor behind Essence VC, he just closed his fourth fund at $41 million "without even trying." Chen's secret weapon? Being technical enough to debate PhD founders on implementation details while understanding the market dynamics that turn scrappy startups into category leaders.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Julie Bort sat down with Tim Chen to explore the rise of solo VCs and who's rewriting the traditional venture playbook.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why the YC playbook of "revenue at all costs" doesn't work for infrastructure startups, and what Chen tells technical founders to focus on instead  The strategic pivot Chen pushed one portfolio company to make that completely changed their trajectory  What being a "small exit founder" taught Chen about venture capital, and why he thinks th

The browser wars are heating up again, this time with AI in the driver’s seat.  OpenAI just launched Atlas, a ChatGPT-powered browser that lets users surf the web using natural language and even includes an “agent mode” that can complete tasks autonomously. It’s one of the biggest browser launches in recent memory, but it's debuting with an unsolved security flaw that could expose passwords, emails, and sensitive data.  On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Max Zeff, Anthony Ha and Sean O’Kane break down Atlas’s debut, the broader wave of alternative browsers, and more of the week’s startup and tech news.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  Why Rivian spinoff Also just landed a massive deal with Amazon for thousands of pedal-assist cargo vehicles (and why the name is a nightmare to say in conversation)  How Sesame, the conversational AI startup from Oculus founders, raised $250M for a product that doesn't really exist yet  The AWS outage that broke much of the web, turned Eight Sleep

Ever wonder if you’re talking to a real person online or just another bot? As bots increasingly outnumber humans online, leading to an explosion of deepfakes and AI-driven fraud, one company has a solution straight out of sci-fi: scanning your iris to verify your identity.  Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan spoke with Adrian Ludwig, Chief Security Officer and Chief Architect at Tools for Humanity, the company behind World’s eye-scanning Orbs appearing around the globe. Bellan and Ludwig discuss building privacy-first identity verification, the open-source approach to biometric tech, and why proving humanity matters now more than ever.  Listen to the full episode to hear:  How zero-knowledge proofs verify that you're over 18 (or human) without revealing your location, browsing history, or other identifying information.  Why Tools for Humanity open-sourced the entire Orb — from hardware to firmware and software.  How Match Group, Event Pop, and other major platforms are

Silicon Valley’s rule? It’s not cool to be cautious. As OpenAI removes guardrails and VCs criticize companies like Anthropic for supporting AI safety regulations, it’s becoming clearer who the industry thinks should shape AI development.  On this episode of Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Max Zeff discuss how the line between innovation and responsibility is getting blurrier, plus what happens when pranks go from digital to physical.  Listen to the full episode to hear about:  The real-world DDoS attack that blocked Waymo service for a day near a dead-end San Francisco street  Goldman Sachs acquiring Industry Ventures for up to $965 million, signaling Wall Street's growing interest in the secondary venture market  FleetWorks' $17 million Series A to modernize trucking with AI  Why advocating for AI safety has become "uncool" in Silicon Valley from Anthropic facing backlash to California's SB 243 regulation of AI companion chatbots and the success of companies like Chara