demo day

Here's what Mary Ann, Alex and Kirsten got into:

• Mentra wants to help neurodivergent jobseekers find ideal jobs: We love a startup that is doing good for itself and doing good for others. This deal that Mary Ann wanted to chat through seems to check both boxes.
• SimpleClosure raises $1.5 million: What happens if your startup dies, and you need to wind down? You might need a simple way to close things up, right? Enter SimpleClosure.
• Argo AI founders are building something new: What just raised more than $1 billion to take another crack at self-driving trucks? This company.
• All Things YC: You can find demo day favorites from day one here, and day two here. And, for an overview of sectors, here you go.
• EU x Regulation: We wrapped with a quick look at regulation from the EU that will impact a bunch of major tech companies. It led to a conversation of what sort of market regulatory structure is most conducive for startup growth.

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

While the Equity crew prepares for another Y Combinator Demo Day, we're throwing it back to when Natasha and Alex caught up with current YC Partner and Managing Director of YC Early Stage, Michael Seibel. The main question on the pair's mind was how is YC evolving to meet a changed market? 

Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from the 2022 summer batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution.

We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going.

As always, we'll be back with our weekly roundup on Friday, and don’t forget that Equity is opening this year’s Disrupt. We’ll see you there!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.

Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

It's episode 169 of The Cavalry! Johnny needs backup that you should be allowed to not be a dog person if you want. Andrew needs backup that fading out to end a song is cheating. This Wednesday at 3pm Eastern/6pm Pacific we will do an Instagram Live episode of The Cavalry! If you don't catch it live it will go up on our Patreon to listen to later. But we will deal once and for all with the controversy of changing the name of the podcast. Subscribe to the Patreon for that or tune in live on Instagram! 

Today, we are talking about crypto, Uber, and how to be petty at scale. Here's what Alex got into:

• Around the world of capital, we're most confused at certain bits of price stability in the cryptocurrency markets. It feels a bit faux, if that makes sense.
• Where prices are less steady is the world of YC startups, where, once again, there's complaints amongst venture investors about the valuations that some of the earliest-stage tech companies out there are commanding. Perhaps a greater discount given the state of the world was anticipated.
• Uber is selling part of Careem in a deal worth $400 million. Uber wants to do things on wheels. A super app company, at least in the Middle East, it is not. But it is about to have a huge new bankroll.
• The Musk v. Substack battle took up much weekend oxygen, showing that it is often hard to retain one's free speech bonafides when you just don't want to anymore.

All that and there are new FTX docs! Huzzah! Let's have a good week, y'all.

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. 

Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

This was Y Combinator week in a sense, with the well-known accelerator showing off hundreds of startups over a two-day period. We had some thoughts about that. But! There was a lot more for Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex to dig into, so we have a little something for everyone today.

Here's the show notes, enjoy:

• First, support our sibling podcasts Found and Chain Reaction in the Webbys! They deserve it, and we're voting for them too.
• For our Deals of the Week, we had: Monument and Tempest shared patients’ private data with advertisers, Acorns buys GoHenry, and Alex has notes on how the Q1 venture capital market is shaping up.
• Looking for all the Y Combinator notes your heart could desire? You can find our favorites from days one and two at those links, and read this Natasha piece on why the Bay is Back.
• We also took the time to discuss the term 'demo day' for an event where there are no, you know, demos.
• Latin America was back on the show thanks to Mary Ann, giving us a good reminder that we have not spent enough time lately looking at the region.
• We closed with Frank, a frank chat that frankly had us shaking our heads. Fraud is bad, and nearly doubly so when it comes to startups, where trust plays such a critical role.

Equity will return to your ears Monday morning, cheers until then!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. 

Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Alex filled in for Natasha as host this week, and to celebrate the end of Q1 2023 and the start of another earnings cycle, we invited PitchBook Senior Analyst Kyle Stanford onto the show. Stanford and his company are key providers of data concerning the domestic and global venture capital markets making him a perfect guest to help kickstart our look at recent venture results, and trends.

We had a lot to talk about:

• Where early-2023 venture aggregates are trending, including a chat about different stages of startup size and how investors are approaching those groups.
• Sectors that are hot and sectors that are, well, not.
• When we might get an exit market that actually exists, again. And why Stanford popped our fading optimism that we could get more IPOs later this year.

And we had a good time. We hope that this episode helps you form an informed posture towards fundraising for, and operating your company.

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. 

Equity drops at 7:00 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotifyand all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together and more!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: How is YC evolving to meet a changed market? The question is fresh off of Demo Day last week, where Team TC and TC+ banded forces to cover the twice-a-year event that sees hundreds of startups launch to the public.

These days, Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on recent news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from this past batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution today.

We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going. Equity has a live show on Thursday, and lots more to come. Chat soon!

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

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. As you can tell by the headline of this episode, this is a bonus episode all about Y Combinator Demo Day (and the terms we heard most often during the two-day affair).

Natasha and Alex jumped on Twitter Spaces to talk through our favorites of the batch, geography changes, and diversity shake-up that included less women getting funded batch over batch. Below are some of the posts we pulled from:

• The biggest moonshots in YC’s S22 batch
• Our 11 favorite companies from YC’s S22 Demo Day: Part 1 
• Our 10 favorite startups from YC’s S22 Demo Day: Part 2
• Delving into YC’s diversity data following a category shakeup
• Where is Y Combinator startup-hunting in 2022?

Y Combinator week is busy, but we made it through! Talk Monday!

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

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

We are back on a Tuesday instead of a Monday thanks to an American holiday, which means we are looking at a compressed week. But don't let the shorter window for news fool you -- it's going to be busy.

• Stocks are largely higher today, but off the back of some rough trading weeks so don't read too much into the bounce. The world of crypto appears pretty quiet, as it has for some time now.
• Y Combinator Demo Day is this week, which means a flood of startups and other news is in the offing. TechCrunch will be all over the news, naturally. Strap in.
• And there's an Apple event this week as well, possibly bringing new iPhones and other related consumer gear. How excited you are about that will depend on how old your current phone is.
• From there, it was time for economic concerns and worries about how a worse, or lesser macroeconomic picture could impact startups. We talk a lot about market size, and venture investment. But what about the macro-climate itself?
• And to close out, what is Binance doing?

No live show this week, but we are back tomorrow and Friday! Hugs and talk soon.

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

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

This was a Live Week, meaning that Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann recorded the show on Twitter Spaces, hanging out with a bunch of the Equity family. Good times were had! We also disclosed that we are recording live at Disrupt this year! Yes, so come hang out as we tape the show on opening day, full of coffee and enthusiasm.

Now, to the show notes. Here's what we have in store for you:

• Deals of the Week: Stacked, which is taking on Twitch with a web3 twist; Astro, which wants to help connect Latin American developers to American companies; Anchor, which is building a BaaS platform in Africa.
• From there we riffed on the big changes at Y Combinator, and what it means for an early-stage venture firm managing over $3.2 billion in assets. The executive shift touched down just in advance of next week's demo day. Next week is going to be busy.
• Then Mary Ann walked us through issues at real-estate focused fintech startups, namely that they are burning too much money. Naturally this meant that we had to mention Better.com, again.
• And we closed with layoff news from Snap, and Clearco. Both stories are vastly different but compare in the layoffs, retraction in international presence, and promise for more focus in the future.

If you are coming to Disrupt, use the code 'EQUITY' to save 15%. It makes us look good internally, and gets you a cheaper discount to our first Disrupt live show in the history of the podcast. And, speaking of the pod, Equity is back next Tuesday, not Monday, due to the American holiday. Ok! Bye!

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

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Welcome to our Friday show! Our regular co-host Natasha was off this time, so Mary Ann and Alex linked arms with our producer Grace to blast our way through the news of the week. As always, we had to pick and choose what seemed to matter the most.

Here's what we got into:

• All Things Y Combinator: Here's our first set of favs, and our second. Here's a rundown of fintech companies from the batch, and our look at the Indian participants, and those hailing from Africa.
• Instacart as trendsetter: The well-known grocery delivery company has lowered the price at which it will value employee equity comp, something that could become a trend. It seems so, with Instacart leading a potential vanguard of similar actions from other companies in time. Also we're thinking about how startup valuations could regain their shine.
• Gaming: With the huge Axie Infinity hack making headlines, we talked about the matter and how other startups are tinkering with the play-to-earn market.
• And we closed with the topic of social networks, what Elon Musk is up to, and how Facebook managed to confirm everyone's suspicions about its ethics.

 Whew! What a week, y'all. Chat Monday!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, in light of Y Combinator's bi-annual demo day, Natasha and Alex asked about the utility of the parade of pitches. Our big question:

Are demo days outdated?

The question comes after Natasha’s latest Startups Weekly column, where she looked into the trend of everyone constantly trying to re-invent startup accelerators. We've seen everything from in-person events, to virtual pitch-a-thons, to record efforts, and more. Name it, it's been tried.

Today's show is a continuation of that conversation, specifically digging into how demo days served founders in the past, and how they amplify in the present. There's a good bit of factors that jolted things up, including the proliferation of accelerators, a boom in pre-seed funding and the pandemic forcing programming to go remote. We also ask for whom are demo days really for?

Listen in to hear what we landed on, disagreed with and picked for founders to focus on today.

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Every Monday, Grace and Alex and Kell scour the news and record notes on what’s going on to kick off the week.

This week had a theme. Which was startups. Lots and lots of startups. Here’s the rundown:

• Markets are mixed this morning, with strong crypto trading results and big news from Tesla.
• The weekend’s leading conversation in the tech and startup world was about this analysis regarding crypto upstarts not giving out board seats to investors. Call it peak founder-friendliness? It’s also a huge risk, as investors have taken board seats for a reason, historically. All the same, you gotta win those deals.
• Y Combinator Demo Day is this week: We are going to see hundreds of startups make their pitch in rapid-fire fashion. Sure, many will have already raised capital, but the capitalist confab is still worth watching. I am looking for API-led startups and any hints about where DAOs are heading, personally.
• Zepto raised, which TechCrunch covered here, and I had a few thoughts about.

The big tech landscape is quiet this week thus far, which means we can focus in on startups. See you at demo day tomorrow!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Make your startup investment ready! Today my guest is Priyanka Madnani, Founder & CEO of Easy to Pitch. Easy to Pitch is one of the fastest-growing one-stop pitching solutions for start-up founders &  entrepreneurs looking to raise capital for their unique ideas. Since starting she now helps over 500 startups and reviewed over 5000 decks. 

So in this episode she talks about how she spotted a gap in the market for pitching solutions. Talks about helping founders and what investors are looking for. She talks about what founders should include in the pitch deck & getting your first 3 slides right. 

She talks about whether you should demo the product and thoughts on Shark Tank pitches. She talks about what founders struggle with when pitching. She talks about the reality of funding and  a 10 second pitch which helped her get a client. She goes on to  talk about branding, building relationships, winning awards  and leadership. and much more!

In this conversation we talk about:

• What inspired her to do this?
• Why her first ever pitch deck flopped and how she turned it all around
• Not everyone gets funding
• Advice on starting your own brand.
• Having no role models or mentors at the start.
• Starting a Facebook group and using Youtube, Instagram, Linkedin.
• Being a top entrepreneur in india
• Getting funded.
• Don't forget the financials!
• Being a solo player and turning into a team player.
• Advice on finding a co-founder
• Make sure you practice and be patient

And much more

links

https://easytopitch.com/

P.S

if you need something to do during these challenging and difficult times and want some inspiration and need some creativity. check out Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes in design, business, tech, and more. Anyone can join the millions of members in our community to learn cutting-edge skills, network with peers and discover new opportunities.

Try Premium free for 2 months and access all my classes!

https://www.skillshare.com/r/user/neilpatel

music by Punch Deck. https://open.spotify.com/artist/7kdduxAVaFnbHJyNxl7FWV

Hosted And Produced by Neil Patel 

https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/neilpatel2

Listen and Subscribe to More Episodes

https://www.indianstartupshow.com/

Music by Punch Deck.

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7kdduxAVaFnbHJyNxl7FWV

After a 17-hour marathon through nearly 200 startup pitches, the Equity team was fired up to get back on Twitter and chat through some early trends and favorites from the first day of Y Combinator's demo party. We'll be back on the air tomorrow, so make sure you're following the show on Twitter so you don't miss out.

What did Natasha and Alex chat about? The following:

• First Impressions: We started by going through top-line numbers, geographic breakdown, and how the accelerator is doing when it comes to the representation of diverse founders. The last bit had a tiny bit of progress, but diversity continues to be an issue in YC's batches - even as cohort size grows. We also chatted about what startups pitching can work on: like better mics, which are cheap and good.
• Our early favorites: Metaphor, Lumify, Alex's favorite duo Indian real estate plays, Akudo, Reframe, and Playhouse.
• And some hmmm moments, including our thoughts on Writesonic, which Natasha has a potentially paranoid theory on.

TechCrunch has extensive coverage of the day on the site, so there's lots to dig into if you are in the mood. More tomorrow!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here. I also tweet.

We are heading into a simply crazy week, so make sure that you keep Twitter pulled up as often as you can. Why?

• This is Y Combinator Demo Day week, which means a zillion startups are going to be doing their best to make noise, stand out from their peers, and raise capital on uncapped notes sans discount. TechCrunch is going to be busy as bees tracking the accelerator cohort, and bringing our favorites to your ears and eyes.
• The Chinese regulatory story continues, with new gaming restrictions and fresh warnings about anti-monopoly action coming this morning. As before, the news is moving stocks. And the gaming news underscores that the Chinese state is not too bothered about directly undercutting its private sector to meet government goals.
• All that regulatory work is harming venture capital investment, it appears. Despite a rapid-fire July for Chinese startups, August is looking thinner from a foreign-investor perspective.
• Vietcetera has raised new capital, along with Urbanbase. In India, Ola Electric is looking to raise a huge amount of capital, we report.
• In public market news, Astra's rocket didn't go up high enough, so its shares are falling. And we are heading back into an IPO cycle, so get ready.

Alright! That's our show! Let's get to work!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. News was right back up to a dull roar this week, so we did our best to trim and hone and just bring you the most important things.

Here's the rundown:

• David Dobrik stepped down from Dispo, the photo-sharing app he co-created, this past week after allegations came out about him. We talked about the venture capital angle, since early-stage investors in the app reactively distanced from their investments. Could this set precedent or have a chilling effect on celebrity-startups?
• Robinhood filed privately to go public! So, it's happening everyone. At long last, one of Silicon Valley's hottest companies is kicking off its IPO process. We're hype, you're hype, and we had some jokes.
• And in other mega-unicorn news, it appears that Microsoft is tempted to plonk down $10 billion for Discord. Why, you ask? Well why not. It's just $10 billion from Microsoft's $1,780 billion valuation. Or around half a percent.
• Sticking to the $10 billion-and-greater category, Plaid could be raising $600 million at a valuation of $10 billion to $15 billion. That's a lot of money. Danny, however, has some doubts.
• Also, Plaid has announced the inaugural cohort of its FinRise accelerator, a program focused on helping fintech startups led by underrepresented founders.
• And then there were a few rounds to chat about. Namely the intensely interesting Bevy deal, and Ro raising $500 million at a $5 billion  valuation.
• And to wrap, Natasha and Alex shared their favs from TechCrunch's massive Y Combinator demo day coverage. Which you can read here, and here.

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here.

If you are paying attention to Y Combinator's demo day this week, our primer is here. And our Friday news roundup is here. With that, let's get into the news:

• Ironsource is going public via a SPAC. It's worth even more than eToro, which is also going public via a SPAC. It's a big quarter for Israeli tech.
• Sivo is a hot startup that you're going to hear more about. Also a lesson here for founders, if you want attention, share numbers.
• Deliveroo has a price for its IPO, and the company could be worth as much as £8.8 billion. Even more, the European delivery giant has seen huge demand gains thus far in 2021.
• On the month front, Nuvemshop has raised $90 million, M Capital Management has raised $30.85 million for a new fund, and Aldea Ventures has raised a €60 million investment vehicle.
• Remember Dispo? The hot photo-taking service? Read this.
• And finally. Happify Health has raised a $73 million Series D, while Clarify Health has put together a $115 million round of its own.

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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

Yep, it's another Equity Shot. We're back. And then we're going to be back on Friday. Because we can't stop talking about the biggest news week in the world of startups and venture capital in some time.

Before we start, shoutout to the NBA for the growing, wildcat strike to protest racist police violence in America.

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming. This time 'round Natasha and your humble servant were joined by Lucas Matney, a member of the TechCrunch reporting team and a first-timer on Equity. Where's he been all this time? Covering all sorts of things, including VR startups for the publication. He was also a big part of our coverage of both days of Demo Day, making him a perfect fit for this episode.

Danny was given a break to sit at home, play board games, and iron his favorite sweatshirt. He's back Friday morning.

In case you've missed the words, here's what we wrote this week on the subject:

• All the Day One Y Combinator startups
• Our favorite Day One Y Combinator startups
• All the Day Two Y Combinator startups
• Our favorite Day Two Y Combinator startups

Those entries should be pretty exhaustive, so dig into them when you can.

And make sure to read Natasha's great piece on a super-hot startup from the batch, which comes up in the show. Peep that we are back on YouTube and we'll be right back. Stay cool!

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.