Raising in a recession

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week’s episode was a testament to making do, as we’ve had to cancel some trips, juggle a few guests, and get up and running as a podcast that have guests dial in without losing our stride. So, this week Danny and Natasha and Alex were joined by Unshackled VC’s Manan Mehta.

And it went pretty ok, aside from a hiccup or two, expect Equity to still feature guests as often as it makes sense, even if we’re currently locked out of our own studio. Anyhoo, a combo of local recording, remote video setups, and Chris handling the dials meant that we were able to talk over all the good stuff:

• Hashicorp raises $175 million at a $5 billion valuation. It was nice to see a round so large take place when the rest of the sky in tech was busy falling onto itself.
• Deepgram raises $12 million. Alex covered this company’s funding, winding up pretty excited about the technology itself.
• Edtech startup Teachable exits after good GMV growth. Nice exit for this New York City-based startup, and we chatted about the early-stage edtech market, which was good fun.
• VC firms offer group therapy for founders due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It marks another data point in the small, but growing, cohort of venture capitalists thinking about mental health services beyond an investment opportunity.
• Remote Year, which helps you work while traveling the world, lays off 50% of staff. It’s one of an incoming flurry of layoffs we’re expecting to see from travel-related startups.
• Danny advised founders to announce their rounds now to reassure their employees and customers that they are ready for the coming recession
• And finally, what’s up with Airbnb’s direct listing timing? We tried to sort that out before we ran short of time.

All told there were some laughs, and we spent a good few minutes before mentioning COVID-19. It was good fun to have the crew on for a classic Equity episode, and a big thanks to Manan for coming aboard under less-than-optimal circumstances.