Natasha Mascarenhas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Mascarenhas
Welcome to spooky season in startups
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. A multibillion dollar acquisition, IPO projections and some g
500 Global’s take on the rising competition among startup accelerators
500 Global, a startup accelerator formerly known as 500 Startups, has rebranded to become a venture firm. Here's how it impacts startups.
We’re all just a Hop, Skip and a Drive away from a better Hustle
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Before we get into this week’s show notes, some programm
Truepill, a digital health unicorn, conducts fourth round of layoffs in 2022
Truepill, a platform that helps other companies offer diagnostics, telehealth services and prescriptions, has conducted its fourth layoff of the year. Sources say the layoff impacted around 65% of the
The biggest moonshots from 500 Global’s latest Demo Day
It’s demo day season. This morning marked the kickoff of VC firm 500 Global’s Fall 2022 Demo Day, which saw over a dozen startups give their best pitches to prospective investors — a
Hustle Fund’s side hustle just helped it close a third fund
Hustle Fund, an early-stage-focused venture firm built by former 500 Startups partners Elizabeth Yin and Eric Bahn, is growing into its name. The firm has steadily grown its assets under management si
CoRise’s approach to up-skilling involves fewer courses and more access
Despite the boom of education technology investment and innovation over the past few years, founder Julia Stiglitz, who broke into the edtech world as an early Coursera employee, thinks there’s a lo
Building startups in public has an end date
This week on the Equity podcast, Natasha Mascarenhas asked: How does the 'build in public' mindset impact the way that startups are built?
Twitter’s first comms exec is building a comms network for execs
The communications world is an enigma, and at times, feels counter to the job of a journalist. So to hear that there’s an effort to help more comms people trade notes, share stories and prepare cura
Tiger Global, fickle checks and the difficulty of acceleration
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. When On Deck had to cut its staff twice within a matter of mon
The ‘ideal runway’ is a myth, isn’t it?
Startups are given a lot of advice about extending their runway, but after speaking to sources, it seems like there is no magic number.
When VCs fund the thing you didn’t think they’d ever fund
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Coming to hang with us at Disrupt, where Equity is kicking off
On Deck tried to do it all. Now, it’s trying to do less, better
Erik Torenberg is no longer the co-CEO of On Deck, a tech company that is trying to productize the community in a way that helps founders secure capital and advice. Torenberg, an early Product Hunt em
Network isn’t a dirty word
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single to
Video game coaching marketplace Metafy cuts 23% of staff despite doubling revenue
Metafy, a marketplace for video game coaching, laid off 23% of its staff last week, primarily impacting product, design and engineering teams, founder Joshua Fabian confirmed in an e-mail to TechCrunc
YC’s Michael Seibel clarifies some misconceptions about the accelerator
Y Combinator's Michael Seibel spoke to TechCrunch’s Equity podcast about Y Combinator amid market change. We extracted four key excerpts from the interview to analyze further.
Community isn’t a buzzword, it’s a challenge
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. I first covered Launch House in Oct 2020, when the co-founders
Chain Reaction x Equity talk the Ethereum Merge
If you are into web3, the biggest news of the week in tech was not the massive Figma-Adobe deal. No, the leading story of the last few days — arguably even the last few weeks — has been th
Launch House holds private town hall, says investigation is underway
In a town hall with some members of their community, Launch House addressed the harassment and assault allegations surfaced by a Vox Investigation earlier this week. The startup, backed by a16z and Fl
Launch House’s community reacts to misconduct and harassment allegations
Launch House, a community-oriented startup that has built a brand around launching ideas out loud, is in the middle of a controversy after a Vox investigation surfaced multiple sexual assualt and hara