This podcast episode discusses a neobank's pivot to B2B, a climate incubator, and cross-border investing. They also cover Saudi Arabia's AI investment push, VCs holding back IPO rush, and Reddit's successful trading debut.

Mary Ann and Alex discuss positive signs in fintech, including Klarna's solid growth and profitability. They also explore the recovery phase of fintech companies, recent developments in the BNPL industry, and the potential dangers of buy now pay later services. They reflect on the hangover and predictions for fintech in 2023, and discuss the lack of coverage on fintech startups closing down and the decline in M&A deals in the industry.

Mary Ann, Alex, and Kirsten discuss startups helping neurodivergent jobseekers, a startup providing simple closure for failed startups, Argo AI's new project, YC's demo day, and EU regulations impacting tech companies.

Mary Ann and Alex are back for another busy news week chock full of deals to chew through.Here's the rundown: Deals of the Week: We think that the idea behind the recently-funded Honey Homes is excellent, but we're split about the cost. We also went over Gusto's latest financial achievements and its plans to team up with Remote. Fintech M&A: The biggest deal of the week in fintech was Visa's purchase of  Pismo. We haven't had unicorn-level acquisitions lately, so this one was welcome. Elsewhere in the space, Brex has brought on board a former SVB and a16z denizen, and Ramp bought Cohere.io (not this Cohere, the other one). Other M&A: But those weren't the only deals. Databricks bought MosaicML, IBM bought Apptio, and ThoughtSpot has acquired Mode Analytics. Help, my unicorn is starving: We closed with Alex's look at the declining funding to unicorn and web3 startups, as well as Rebecca Szkutak's latest on the secondary market in the process. Equity will be back on Wednesday as we head off into yet another holiday weekend here in the U.S. when Alex will finally put his PTO to use. In the meantime, let's catch up on Twitter @EquityPod. Talk soon!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! 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.

We had the full crew aboard today for our live taping, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex. Overall, it was a success? Our streaming tech took us to various Internet platforms, and people came to Hopin and asked questions. Thank you! It's always a risk to do something new, so thank you for making it a win.But enough of all that, what did we talk about? Here's the rundown: Funding rounds from Mos (edtech + fintech), Alchemy (blockchain infra), and Cooks Venture (patented chickens). The last round got the most attention during the recording, leading to questions about the ethics of eating meat. Peloton's news, and the pandemic effect on companies was up next. Or more specifically, the changing impact of the pandemic on companies. Peloton is suffering in the pandemic's wake (although some argue that is due more to mismanagement than the pandemic), but other companies are coming out of the dip in reasonable form. From there we dug into the ethics of venture capitalists having side hustles as consultants. Our read is that the setup is possible to be done ethically, and as the investing market grow a cohort of check-writers with smaller AUMs, some additional work to pay the bills can be unavoidable. The drama was illustrative, if more rude than it needed to be. And we closed with insurtech. After insurtech stocks got hammered, there's some optimism that better days are up ahead. Whew! We're back with another live show in two weeks. Until then, we're back to normal! 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.

Guests Mary Ann and Alex join the hosts to discuss the decline of Silicon Valley Bank, the chaos at OpenAI, and the outcome of the SBF trial. They also delve into the aftermath of SVB's collapse, the impact on companies like Brex, and the potential threat of OpenAI's GPT store to AI startups.

In this episode, Mary Ann and Alex discuss the recent funding rounds for Allara and Agnikul. They also delve into the beef between WeWork and Codi, and the latest updates on digital-nomad friendly home rental business, Anyplace. The hosts speculate on Plaid's potential IPO and talk about the current AI wave. They also mention their previous discussion with a Crunchbase analyst about Q3 VC.

This week's podcast talks about the implications of the writer's strike on AI, OpenAI allowing shareholders to sell stock, electric boat startup Arc's funding, fluctuations in venture and stock markets, YC and accelerators in the startup world, and the tech labor market for startups to hire key talent.

TechCrunch contributors Mary Ann and Alex, along with startup reporter Kirsten Korosec, discuss Nvidia's impressive earnings report and the growth of the company. They also cover funding news for Ramp, Lex, and Northvolt, as well as the public listing of Better.com. The hosts highlight the presence of startups focused on excrement in this year's TechCrunch Battlefield 200 companies. The podcast covers various topics including fintech, AI-powered writing tools, battery-building, and challenges faced by startups in a tough market.

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.For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more! 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.