Another month, another billion dollars in value appreciation

Hello, and welcome to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. And have a good time.

This week Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex (along with our amazing production team Grace, Chris, and Kell) took on a bevy of topics from around the world of startups and technology more broadly.

• We naturally kicked off with news that Facebook intends to rebrand itself. Which we don’t think will do much to detract from its various crises. But the news does underscore that Facebook is, in fact, serious about writing its next chapter.
• From there it was time to talk funding rounds. This week we picked Vertical Oceans and its fishy plans, Superplastic and its stable of rude digital critters and Modern Age and its plan to help us all age a bit more gracefully.
• Vibe Capital, founded by Teachable’s Ankur Nagpal, is a $60 million fund for international, scrappy founders. We spoke about the founder to investor pipeline, and why everyone wants each other’s jobs.
• And then Alex ran us through some data from the Chinese venture capital market, information that was far more positive than we anticipated. Given, you know, the country’s regulatory crackdown on technology companies.
• We closed with a number of major fintech rounds, including new capital for Deel and a funding scoop on Brex, which is now officially a decacorn. Notably, Deel and Brex both raised mega-rounds just six months after raising mega-rounds.
• While we’re in a bubble, it’s easy to get lost in the same narrative: everything is booming! This week’s episode was a good reminder of how diverse, and nuanced, this ever-lasting startup summer truly is.