Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week was a treat. We had Danny Crichton in the studio. We had Connie Loizos in the studio. I was in the studio. And our guest, the excellent Andy McLoughlin, a partner at UnCork Capital, was in the studio as well.
Thus it was with much enthusiasm that we first got to talk about the latest Elon Musk tweet to move Tesla’s stock, causing the famous CEO’s best-known company even more self-inflicted damage.
What a mess.
Happily, we had a whole show planned out before that happened, so after cleaning up Musk’s latest we tucked into a bit of our normal fare: big rounds, IPOs, and venture moves.
Up first was the $100 million Hopper round. For those unaware, Hopper is a travel-focused company that helps folks with flexible schedules get cheap tickets to fun places. Who these people are who have flexible schedules isn’t clear to me at the moment, but I’m sure someone, somewhere, isn’t effectively their Google Calendar’s valet.
Also up this week: $165 million more for ZipRecruiter, and possibly $500 million more for Coinbase. A few thoughts. First, it was super interesting that this was only Zip’s second known round ever, and that Coinbase’s valuation could have been even higher than the rumor. Perhaps even 50 percent higher.
Scooting to the next, the impending Tencent Music IPO caught our fancy. It’s going to be big, it’s going to be splashy, and the company actually makes money. What an odd trio of things! Yes, there are companies in the world that go public and make money. Just not that many of them these days.
And finally. there’s news out of the a16z fortress: a new partner rises. As Connie notes during the show, Andreessen as a firm has been on a bit of a hiring kick. Which is fair, frankly, as it’s not like the shop is short of cash.
That and a few jokes along the way were all that we had time for. Shout out to Andy for being fun, and you, for sticking with the show. Chat soon!
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.
