Science & Technology

Edtech is the new SaaS

Full episode: Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The whole crew was back, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself chattering with Chris Gates behind the scenes making it all work. An extra shoutout to Natasha this week as we spent a lot of…

Published

6 years ago

September 4, 2020

CYBER TECH TV

Full episode:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

The whole crew was back, with Natasha Mascarenhas and Danny Crichton and myself chattering with Chris Gates behind the scenes making it all work. An extra shoutout to Natasha this week as we spent a lot of time talking about edtech, a category that she spearheads for us and has brought to the show. It’s a big deal!

We’re on YouTube now, don’t forget, and with that, let’s get into the news:

Climax Foods raised $7.5 million to help fuel its work to develop alt-foods that are not animal-based. The Equity crew votes that this is a tasty deal. And, Capchase has raised $4.6 million to help cash-out SaaS contracts ahead of their real revenue accrual. Our read is that more financing options for SaaS companies will lead to lower costs of capital for those startups that want it. And, the Envision Accelerator made it through batch one and is on to batch two.
Then we chatted about edtech, with Natasha talking us through Owl Ventures raising huge new funds, Course Hero extending its Series B, Juni hitting $10M ARR and raising about as much, and Unacademy raising tons of cash from Vision Fund 2.
Next up, Patreon also got a new check, which means that it eventually has to go public at some point given that it is now a fancy unicorn.
And speaking of IPOs, Bumble is thinking about going public in 2021, Wish has filed, albeit privately, and GoodRX is going public as well. And it makes money.
What else? This a16z post on IPOs that we fangirl/fanboy’d over as it is good. And we forgot to mention this Fred Wilson post, but it is also good.

And with that, we are nearly at the weekend which is a long one thanks to a holiday, so expect Equity Monday to be, in fact, Equity Tuesday next week. Hugs and good vibes from the Equity Crew!

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4 Comments

Techie Science

September 4, 2020 at 12:15 pm

Your Website and Youtube channe! Is great, I follow it daily ????????

Greetings from ” Techie Science” Youtube Channe! ????????????????????????

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Alyssa Russell

September 4, 2020 at 12:24 pm

Very happy ???????? ????????♥️❤️

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I & N

September 4, 2020 at 12:52 pm

Good stuff

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Jack Ladd

September 4, 2020 at 1:31 pm

Unsubscribed. Boring.

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CNET

Living Underwater in 2026: New Underwater Habitat Just Dropped

Take a closer look at DEEP’s subsea habitat Vanguard, the first new subsea habitat for humans designed, built and deployed in the US in decades. Video Credits 00:00 – Introduction to the Vanguard Undersea Habitat 00:19 – How Saturation Diving Works 00:54 – Inside the Living Chamber and Bathroom 01:10 – Spaceflight Training Analogies 01:27…

Published

15 hours ago

August 2, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

Take a closer look at DEEP’s subsea habitat Vanguard, the first new subsea habitat for humans designed, built and deployed in the US in decades.

Video Credits

00:00 – Introduction to the Vanguard Undersea Habitat
00:19 – How Saturation Diving Works
00:54 – Inside the Living Chamber and Bathroom
01:10 – Spaceflight Training Analogies
01:27 – Dive Center, Foundation, and Topside Buoy
01:54 – DEEP’s Future Vision: Sentinel vs. Vanguard
02:50 – Overcoming the Challenges of Decompression
03:13 – Real-Time Undersea Laboratories and Outro

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CNET

Were You an Internet ‘Newbie’ in 1995?

“Spam.” “Flame mail.” Internet culture has transformed dramatically since 1995, yet so much remains surprisingly the same. Today, we’re opening the CNET Archives to take a look back at how the online world has evolved. Add CNET as a trusted news source Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s browser extension 👉 Check out CNET’s…

Published

2 days ago

August 1, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

Add CNET as a trusted news source
Never miss a deal again! See CNET’s browser extension 👉
Check out CNET’s Amazon Storefront:
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#archives #cnet #techhistory

Science & Technology

Sam Altman isn’t the only one who wants to pump the brakes on AI | Equity Podcast

Published

2 days ago

July 31, 2026

CYBER TECH TV

After years of pushing full speed ahead on AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says maybe it’s time for the AI industry to “pace” itself. The comments came just days after one of OpenAI’s own models broke out of its test environment and got tangled up in a breach at Hugging Face — though as Equity’s hosts point out, sloppy security seems to have been just as much to blame as the model itself. And Altman’s not alone in this stance: both OpenAI and Anthropic have come out in support of a petition echoing that same message.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O’Kane dig into whether the industry is ready to pump the brakes or just temporarily spooked, and who’s on the hook when a model goes rogue.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:18 Zoox gets its robotaxi exemption

2:11 Sam Altman calls for pacing the frontier

6:01 The Hugging Face hack, dissected

10:12 Responsibility, regulation, and the Elon Musk wildcard

13:29 Librarians teaching people to unplug from AI

15:16 Prentice: a new AI lab raises at a $1B valuation

16:46 Amazon files for its own satellite-to-phone network

18:42 SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the launch-business angle

23:48 Pangram raises $9M to detect AI slop