Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Happy 2021, or as our own Danny Crichton aptly names it, December 38, 2020.
Equity crew is back to start the new year in full force, with Alex, Natasha and Danny on the mics and Chris behind the scenes. The reunion led to extreme Dad joke energy from all of us, which helped get through the mountain of tech news that we had in front of us.
In fact, there was so much to talk about that we have a bonus episode coming out Saturday dealing with Roblox and the gaming environment. Stay tuned.
For now, here’s what’s in today’s episode:
- The remote work space is rushing to cure your Zoom fatigue, or at least give you new ways to handle it. This week, we saw GitHub alumni raise millions for a video repository tool, and Teamflow raise more for a virtual platform meant to mimic the serendipity (and productivity) of your currently shuttered office.
- WeLink raised a $185 million Series A round and, while we could have made financial nomenclature jokes, there was much to unpack on the opportunity of 5G and wireless.
- Divvy locked down $165 million, making itself a unicorn in the process. Consider this one another win for Utah, and a big moment for the company itself, which is working in a very competitive space.
- We also noted a series of new VC funds that closed in the final days of 2020, including One Way, USV, Learn Capital and Madrona.
- Hopin went shoppin’, picking up StreamYard for a quarter-billion because they thought it was boppin’. Please forgive our attempt at poetry. Regardless, Hopin spent $250 million for StreamYard, a livestreaming technology platform that it intends to operate independently. The combined company has around $65 million in annual recurring revenue, with the purchased entity bringing $30 million of that on its own. A big deal.
- Twitter is also out in the market with a checkbook, picking up a podcasting app and a design studio.
- And on the podcast front, Amazon is also in the market. This brings up the question, what really is Amazon Prime, anyways?
- Finally, we had few words on why P&G backing off from buying Billie impacts DTC startups everywhere.
As you can tell by our laughs and jokes this week, it is really good to be back. Enjoy the show, and don’t forget the Saturday extra!
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.