Scaling web3, bulls and bears, falling tech valuations, and UFOs

ProWellTech is more than just a site with words. We’re also building a growing stable of podcasts focused on the most critical topics relating to the startup and venture capital worlds. To help you find the right show for your interests, we’ve compiled our audio output from the week.

Embedded below is the latest from Chain Reaction, our new and stellar crypto-focused podcast hosted by Lucas and Anita. You will also find Found, a long-form bit of work that goes deep on the real saga of company formation from Jordan and Darrell. There’s an audio-only version of ProWellTech Live hosted by Matt that features founders and investors discussing successful pitch decks. Finally, there’s Equity, ProWellTech’s long-running, Webby-award-winning podcast focused on venture capital and the latest startup news, hosted by Natasha, Mary Ann and Alex.

And if you are more into the written over the spoken word, well we have newsletters on the above topics as well.

ProWellTech Podcast

Episode 2: Don’t call them UFOs and other news from ProWellTech

Welcome to the first episode of TheProWellTech Podcast where you’ll hear everything you need to know about the week’s top stories in tech from the people who wrote them. This week our host, Managing Editor Darrell Etherington, talks with Taylor Hatmaker about the congressional hearing about UFOs in which pentagon experts say definitively UFOs are real and that sightings reports are way up. And Kirsten Korosec joins us to talk about all the news that came out of the TC Sessions: Mobility. Plus a rundown of the week’s top news on ProWellTech.

Articles from the episode:

Other news from the week:

Chain Reaction

Episode 7: Lux’s crypto VC on the startups securing and scaling web3 (with Grace Isford)

Welcome back, this week Lucas and Anita dive into the latest mega-fund from venture giant Andreessen Horowitz and some of the… interesting bets that they’re making, including one in disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s new crypto startup. Lastly, they recap crypto exchange FTX’s big entry into stock trading, which comes just a week after the firm’s young CEO made a massive bet on Robinhood.

In their interview this week, Lucas and Anita talk to Grace Isford. Isford is an investor at Lux Capital where she focuses on the infrastructure and security opportunities for blockchain startups. We talk about some of the recent big hacks and whether consumers can feel safe betting on crypto.

Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper: https://techcrunch.com/newsletters

Helpful links:

Found

Episode 59: Anniversary Bonus: Founder Roundtable

Happy one year of Found! To celebrate our anniversary, we welcomed back four founders whose stories really stuck with us since we talked to them. In what Jordan called a “founder smoothie”, we talked with Brie Code from TRU LUV who was on our second episode, Earl Cole from SMART Tire Company who was on the following episode, as well as Aditi Shekar from Zeta, and Jelani Memory from A Kids Company About who joined us a few months later. They talk about perspective shifts they’ve experienced in the past year, their different takes on fundraising, and how they stay true to their respective core missions.

Take our listener survey and let us know a bit about yourself and what you think of FOUND.

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Call us and leave a voicemail at (510) 936-1618

Equity

Episode 521: A ping-pong match between bulls and bears

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Happily we were once again at full strength this week, with Alex Wilhelm, Natasha Mascarenhas and Mary Ann Azevedo chatting, and Grace handling production.

You can tell from the topic list today that we are in an odd time. There are myriad signals that the startup market is slowing down. And there are some counter-narrative data points that paint a more complex picture. Where do you stand in your own viewpoint? Well, read on for some data to consider:

Natasha gave us a brief update on All Raise’s annual VC summit, but she’ll get into more on an upcoming Wednesday show (stay tuned!)
Monte Carlo just raised a unicorn round, worth $135 million at a $1.6 billion valuation. On the other hand, Bolt is laying off staff amidst a correction in the larger startup market, and perhaps its own space.
If startup news is pointing in two directions, so too are data from the venture capital world. While Sequoia is warning founders about a downturn, a16z just raised a king’s ransom to pour into the web3 market. Parse that as you will.
There were other bits of news to consider as we work to understand where the startup world truly is today, including news from Zip and Nowports — two newly-minted unicorns that Mary Ann recently profiled.
And we closed on, what else, drama in fintech. As Stripe and Plaid gear up to battle, Finix is either in the fray, or about to jump in, depending on your perspective. What’s clear is that increasingly overlapping fintech giants are going to rub up against one another. You can read more about that in The Interchange, out on Sunday.

Hugs from us to you, and we will talk to you next week!

Episode 520: We think founders need a quick Heart to Heart about the market

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha asked: How are early-stage founders thinking about this downturn? The inimitable Alex teamed up with her to interview Joshua Ogunduthe founder and CEO of Heart to Heart about this timely topic.

The question comes after Natasha’s recent Startups Weekly column, “Everyone is drafting their own startup Black Swan memo.” The column looked at a series of memos that venture capitalist firms sent to portfolio companies about the market downturn. Some were hopeful, some were simple, and others were a vibe check as straightforward as, Can you tell us your ARR and cash-burn in writing? Pretty please?

To flip the script, as we do here on Equity, we’re bringing in the founder perspective to fact check these memos and tell us what it’s really like to be a founder. Ogundu told us what he’s rethinking, the importance of honesty, and what to do before considering a layoff. It’s not too often that we have guests on the show, so when we do, you know it’s going to be a good one.

Episode 519: Will falling tech valuations kick off a M&A boom?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

It’s Monday, which means that Alex and Grace were back as a team to cover the biggest, boldest, and baddest technology news. We are once again back with your weekly kickoff! Here’s what we got into:

The stock market may not vomit all over itself today, which would be a nice break from recent weeks.
Broadcom is working on buying VMware in what would prove to be a mega-deal. Shares of Broadcom are off on the news, while VMware stock is up sharply. The transaction would be worth tens and tens of billions of dollars, if consummated.
Paytm earnings had lots to like, and some elements that were less salubrious. Shares of the Indian unicorn have recovered somewhat in recent days, but remains sharply depressed from its IPO price.
In the startup world: BUD raised $36.8 million, SyIndr raised $12.6 million, and 1K Kirana put $25 million onto its balance sheet.
And we closed out with the fact that there is no free lunch, even in the crypto world.