How much is a pitch deck really worth?

Equity
851 Episodes • Last Episode: May 6, 2024

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

We had the full crew aboard today for our live taping, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary AnnNatasha and Alex. Overall, it was a success? Our streaming tech took us to various internet platforms, and people came to Hopin and asked questions. Thank you! It’s always a risk to do something new, so thank you for making it a win.

But enough of all that, what did we talk about? Here’s the rundown:

  • Funding rounds from Mos (edtech + fintech), Alchemy (blockchain infra) and Cooks Venture (patented chickens). The last round got the most attention during the recording, leading to questions about the ethics of eating meat.
  • Peloton’s news, and the pandemic effect on companies was up next. Or more specifically, the changing impact of the pandemic on companies. Peloton is suffering in the pandemic’s wake (although some argue that is due more to mismanagement than the pandemic), but other companies are coming out of the dip in reasonable form.
  • From there we dug into the ethics of venture capitalists having side hustles as consultants. Our read is that the setup is possible to be done ethically, and as the investing market grows a cohort of check-writers with smaller AUMs, some additional work to pay the bills can be unavoidable. The drama was illustrative, if more rude than it needed to be.
  • And we closed with insurtech. After insurtech stocks got hammered, there’s some optimism that better days are up ahead.

Whew! We’re back with another live show in two weeks. Until then, we’re back to normal!

5 critical pitch deck slides most founders get wrong

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Equity

Hosts

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Alex Wilhelm

Senior Reporter

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Natasha Mascarenhas

Senior Reporter

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Mary Ann Azevedo

Columnist

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From YC to IPO: Winter 2024 Demo Day, Rubrik and Ibotta

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Nvidia might be clouding the funding climate for AI chip startups, but Hailo is still fighting

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Spotify throws its hat in the edtech ring

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A $700M SAFE, IPOs are back and how one venture fund is transcending borders

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Astera Labs goes public, and the Inflection-Microsoft AI saga continues

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LinkedIn wants a piece of Wordle’s success

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How to avoid all the IPO work without annoying investors

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Musk’s Grok goes open source and Reddit updates its IPO filing

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