The only take about the future of media is that media is the future

NelsonG · January 21, 2021

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week we — Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace — had more than a little to noodle over, but not so much that we blocked out a second episode. We try to stick to our current format, but, may do more shows in the future. Have a thought about that? [email protected] is your friend and we are listening.

Now! We took a broad approach this week, so there is a little of something for everything down below. Enjoy!

Hims is going to SPAC itself onto the public markets, which should prove interesting for other D2C startups eyeing the same move.
The final quarter of 2020 and the full year brought an ocean of capital to bear on U.S. startups, something that we delighted in chewing on. Fintech is also hot as all heck.
Plaid is building a fintech accelerator, which we thought was cool.

Plaid launches FinRise, an incubator for underrepresented fintech founders

An edtech startup based in Nigeria raised a $7.5 million Series A on the back of a really neat distribution model. The march of live, tech-powered tutoring lives on!
TripActions raised a pallet of new capital despite having had a somewhat rough 2020 due to the pandemic. It’s a fascinating wager, and one that we will track as it earns out.
There was lots of news in the movement space, including Microsoft helping put $2 billion into self-driving startup Cruise, electric vehicle startup Rivian raising $2.65 billion from Amazon and others, and Bolt Mobility expanding to new markets.

Microsoft invests in Cruise in new $2 billion round

Danny’s GPS story.
Wattpad exits for $600 million, leading to Alex detailing his love of science fiction.
a16z is doubling-down on its in-house media project, and Forbes is building out a paid newsletter service that we think is very neat.

Like we said, it’s a lot, but all of it worth getting into before the weekend. Hugs from the team, we are back early Monday.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.