Discover the innovative startup Checkmate that's reshaping online shopping with its viral app and smart discounts. Dive into Cava's challenging IPO amid a struggling market and examine how layoffs at Soundcloud and Meta highlight shifting priorities. Reflect on the rise and fall of a neobank for the LGBTQ+ community and the broader implications of niche banks in today’s economy. Lastly, explore a hefty funding round for Anthropic and the competitive landscape of AI, filled with bold predictions and Cold War metaphors.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Checkmate's Funding and Investors
Checkmate, a shopping app, raised $15M Series A, attracting investors like Google Ventures and Chain Smokers' Mantis VC.
The app also boasts celebrity angel investors like Paris Hilton and over 400,000 active users, demonstrating significant traction.
insights INSIGHT
Checkmate's Functionality and Goal
Checkmate aggregates online discounts, tracks orders, and even extracts codes from emails, promising considerable savings.
It aims to become a central hub for online shopping, though its data integration might feel invasive to some.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Cava and Zoe's Kitchen
Cava, a Mediterranean fast-casual chain, acquired Zoe's Kitchen for $300 million, converting all locations to Cava.
Mary Ann expresses disappointment over the loss of Zoe's Kitchen's chocolate cake and questions Cava's food quality.
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Mary Ann and Alex were a dynamic duo this week, and here's what they got into:
The fascinating backers of Checkmate, and the future of online shopping: Mary Ann covered a very interesting Series A for Checkmate, a startup that not only has shown real legs on the competitive App Store, but also on social media platforms far and wide.
Cava's IPO won't save the IPO market, but it could help all the same: Alex is so IPO-deprived that he's drawing connections between anything that files and the startup market. This time it's not even that much of a stretch!
Daylight calls it quits: From the 'not a huge surprise' category comes the end of Daylight, a neobank aimed at the LGBTQ+ market that has been struggling for a while yet. This begged the question are themed neobanks going to make it?
Layoffs, Layoffs, Layoffs: Soundcloud is cutting staff to get to profitability, which we can understand. Meta is cutting staff because it, well, wants to conserve capital for more share buybacks?
Anthropic's massive funding round and who is going to win the AI war? When is $450 million not that much money? When you are building foundational AI models that are taking on OpenAI and others. Also in this section: Cold War metaphors.
And with that, we're heading off into a holiday weekend here in the US, so Equity will be back next Tuesday.
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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