Layoffs Amid Luxury: A Contradiction in Tech

 Natasha Mascarenhas, Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebecca Szkutak had fun on this week's recording:

• Deals of the week included a new Trust Fund, a $29M raise from a proptech started by the co-founders of cloud computing company DigitalOcean and a $27M bet by some U.S.-based VCs on an African gaming startup, Carry1st.
• Then we got into the state of fintech funding in 2022. Spoiler alert: It wasn't pretty. We compared fintech's year to that of global startups as a whole, and Becca gave us a lesson on the difference between structured rounds and down rounds.
• We had a blast discussing a new trend of compliment-based teen social media apps, including Gas, which recently got acquired by Discord, and Slay, a German startup that just raised $2.63 million.
• And finally, we discussed Microsoft's latest round of layoffs, which we found both unfortunate and a bit perplexing.

On that note, we appreciate you all and thank you for the refreshing flood of feedback and compliments to start off the year. It always makes our days, and we hope we can lighten up and inform yours.

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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.

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