Welcome to a recap of Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about startups. This episode has a lot to offer, including a major fundraise, a potentially big acquisition gone wrong, and what happens when a fintech company suddenly stops serving certain customers.
First up, Mary Ann Azevedo discussed Clio's huge funding round. The Canadian legal tech company raised $900 million at a $3 billion valuation. That's a huge amount of money any time, but especially in this market. Amazingly, the company continues to grow at a rapid pace, which is no easy feat at such a late stage. We discussed what's driving that growth and how Clio is different from other legal tech startups that have raised capital recently.
Mary Ann and Rebecca Szczuk then discussed Alphabet's announcement this week that it would invest up to an additional $5 billion in Waymo, a clear show of faith from Alphabet in its self-driving cars, but both Becca and Mary Ann agreed that they would prefer to continue riding in cars driven by human drivers.
We close out this week’s deals with a lively discussion about a 17-year-old founder and investor who pitched to investors in a bathroom stall at his high school. He just raised funding for his startup, Aviato, and his story is an inspiring and fun read.
Next up, we look at how cybersecurity company Wiz turned down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Alphabet. We discuss possible reasons why, and look at other examples of big M&A deals that didn't work out.
Last week in Equity, we covered how digital banking startup Mercury suddenly cut off service to founders based in certain countries, including Ukraine. The founders were understandably unhappy, but other fintechs were on hand to help affected customers.
It was a really fun episode, so be sure to check it out!
Equity is TechCrunch's flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo and posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and allcasts.
To follow Equity X And check out Threads at @EquityPod For those who prefer reading over listening, check out our complete episode archive on Simplecast for full episode transcripts.