Natasha Mascarenhas
Senior Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Mascarenhas
Announcing the TechCrunch+ Stage Agenda at Disrupt 2022
2022 is the year that we are returning to in-person events here at TechCrunch, which means that after a few years running remotely, our flagship Disrupt event is back. But while we are shaking up the
Fintech Bolt just laid off over 100 employees across engineering, sales and marketing
One-click checkout startup Bolt has laid off at least 100 employees and counting across go-to-market, sales and recruiting roles, sources say. CEO Maju Kuruvilla confirmed the workforce reduction in a
We think founders need a quick Heart to Heart about the market
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
Sequoia Capital plays Nostradamus (again)
Sequoia Capital, the storied, 50-year-old venture firm, has become known over the years for using sweeping memos to warn the founders in its portfolio about market shifts after the shift has become so
PayPal laid off 83 employees as it reduces Bay Area presence
PayPal laid off dozens of employees from its San Jose headquarters, filings show. As first reported by The Information and later confirmed by Techcrunch, the layoffs impacted 83 employees. PayPal’s
Latch, a proptech meets SaaS play, conducts two consecutive weeks of layoffs
Latch, a proptech smart lock company that raised $152 million in known private capital before debuting on the stock market through a SPAC last year, is conducting another round of layoffs. Earlier thi
MainStreet’s valuation could fall 60% to $200 million amid investor recapitalization pursuit
Weeks after laying off about 30% of its staff, MainStreet is said to be raising another round of funding at a $200 million valuation, sources tell TechCrunch. The news is significant in that MainStree
Everyone is drafting their own startup Black Swan memo
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. “You can often pick up significant market share in an econo
It’s not business as usual (and investors are admitting it)
“You can often pick up significant market share in an economic downturn by just staying alive,” top startup accelerator Y Combinator wrote in an internal email to its founders this week. The advic
A third straight week of tech layoffs in the books
You thought the market was bad for venture capitalists, but what about the actual workers behind the tech companies they’ve backed? Reluctantly, we’re writing a tech layoffs roundup for the third
A Twitter bot wrote this
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. The whole team was back together this week, which was pretty d
A round, acquisition and revenue later, Bravado’s sales network wants you to know it’s #growing
Sahil Mansuri, a sales guy, doesn’t want his industry to be defined by sales guys. The founder began Bravado in 2017 to see what happens when you bring together sales professionals into an online co
Class buys tech from its own founder’s first edtech company for $210 million
Before starting Class, a Zoom-friendly virtual instruction tool, Michael Chasen was the founder of Blackboard, one of the first cloud solutions for education on the market. While Class has some nods t
Is there hope for digital health startups post-Roe?
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
Kolkata Chai’s next cup includes a taste of venture funding
Co-founded by brothers Ani and Ayan Sanyal, Kolkata Chai wants to be “the place to get good chai” in the United States. It’s a big market. The Sanyal brothers estimate the national tea market re
When your startup’s core mission is set to be overturned
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. Hey Jane, a digital health startup that scales access to abort
How close are we to understanding what’s going on?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week we recorded live, which is always good fun,
Tech employees face another tough week of cross-stage layoffs
Unfortunately, there’s more where last week came from. Following last week’s slew of layoffs in tech, this week had another dose of staff cuts across tech companies. Impact was felt across
Scott Galloway’s edtech startup, Section4, lays off a quarter of staff
Section4, an upskilling startup launched by prominent NYU professor Scott Galloway, has laid off a quarter of staff sources say. The layoffs, which occurred last week, affected employees across all le
Leland breaks into the coaching space with a focus on careers, not classes
The coaching world is crowded. There’s BetterUp, a re-skilling platform that wants to bring executive coaching to employees, and Sounding Board, which mixes SaaS and coaching services. Not to mentio