Acquisitions are heating up, and Mercury eyes the fintech crown

Finally, some good news! This week, we were pleasantly surprised to see that FTX victims would be getting some money back – even if it’s not as much as they might have hoped. That wasn’t all, though: Mary Ann Azevedo, Kirsten Korosec, and Alex Wilhelm had plenty else to talk about this week on Equity. We discussed why investors are drawn to the fact that Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increasingly digital space and also how one North Carolina startup that started out by building drones to clean windows in tall buildings has also become a robotics company. Kirsten helped us understand what was behind Motional’s decision to delay its commercial robotaxi plans amid restructuring, and the greater context around that. We then dug into digital banking startup Mercury’s plans to branch out into software, and how it now fits into the increasingly crowded spend management landscape. And, we riffed on the fact that we covered three M&A deals this week (read about them here, here and here) and how refreshing that was considering M&A activity has been lighter than expected. (Spoiler alert: AI was involved in at least two of them). Last but certainly not least, we close out the show with an announcement. After 7 amazing years, Alex's time with the podcast, and TechCrunch, is coming to a close. We're excited to see what he does next, but we are sure going to miss him dearly. Thank you for everything, Alex! This is not, however, the end of Equity. We'll be back bright and early Monday morning with your tech and startup news, along with another round of Pitch Deck Teardown. Talk soon! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. Credits: Equity is 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Today is May 10th. I'm Mary Ann Azaveto and joining me is Senior TC Reporter Alex Wilhelm. Alex, dare I ask, how are you today?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Well, I feel like someone has tried to kill me and then reassembled me using the old spare parts that don't fit together. I have COVID for the first time that I know of. So if I sound like I'm a cadaver, accurate, but I was not going to miss the show. I'm here. I'm excited. Yay Equity.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  What a trooper, Alex. Sucks.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Well, we're also joined by TechCrunch Senior Reporter and Editor Kirsten Korsak. Kirsten, how are you? Presumably better than Alex?

• 0:56Kirsten Korosec?

  I am living the dream and not with COVID. So happy, but feeling very empathetic towards Alex.

• 1:04Speaker 01

  I have a question about that because I don't go places much. So I haven't had COVID yet. So this is my first time. Have you guys had COVID?

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Once.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Once. Okay.

• 1:14Kirsten Korosec?

  I have not, and I travel all the time.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:17Kirsten Korosec?

  So.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's not fair.

• 1:20Kirsten Korosec?

  I know. It's not fair. I travel a lot for work. I go on press drives and I haven't ever had it. And I've been checked to see if I've ever had it and I haven't. So I'm one of those weirdos, genetic anomaly.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  You know what? I think I would have made fun of you before getting COVID, but now after the last 12 hours, I would just revel in that. Hell yeah. Go Kirsten's immune system. Rock and roll.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah. Well, today we are going to get through a lot of topics, including up top, we've got FTX news. Once again, deals of the week include a May health, emotional part two, and Lucid Bots. And then we're going to be talking about Mercury, the latest going on there. And we're going to also take a look inside a new string of acquisitions. So Kirsten, tell us about FTX. What's the latest?

• 2:08Kirsten Korosec?

  Yeah. Before we get into the deals, I feel like this is a happy outcome somehow from FTX. Crypto fraud victims are basically getting their money back plus interest. So in total, FTX says it's basically me able to distribute between 14 and a half to 16.3 billion in cash. And that's going to go to debtors and that includes interest. So this is kind of good news.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Okay. I saw this, Kristen, and I was like, wow, look at that. What a, what a surprisingly positive outcome for such a catastrophic cluster frick of a company. And then I discovered that they are getting their initial dollar equivalent back plus interest. But if they'd held like the crypto that FTX had had, it would have appreciated more. So there are some folks who are annoyed. They're not getting the full appreciation. And I, I get that, but if you didn't think you were going to get any money back and you're getting your initial principal plus interest. I mean, that's better than I thought.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  It's better than nothing. Agreed, though, that it, it does suck that if you had put that money in a different exchange, it today would be worth a lot, lot more. But yeah, again, if you're looking at the alternative of zero compared to at least something, it is better and it's unexpected.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  I think this is, this is one of those not your keys, not your coins moments kind of brought to life, if you will.

• 3:30Kirsten Korosec?

  Right. I mean, it's, it was an outcome I didn't expect. So it's easy to look at, you know, 2020 hindsight, had we put it in another investment, it would have been X. But the fact that I didn't think anyone would get a dime, I feel like, yeah, good job.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. For sure. Definitely. Again, better, better than nothing. Well, now let's talk about a startup called Ame Health. It's building an in-person approach to mental health care. Alex, tell us about it.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Okay, so one thing I think we've all seen in and around the world since the onset of COVID and then it's retreat and then, you know, haha irony, is that people are a little bit more anxious and a little bit more depressed. And I think that there has been a lot of good work done out there to build companies that are scaling virtual therapy. So more folks have access to mental health services. Good. The problem is, if you want to focus more on more serious mental health issues, you need a different set of tools. And that's why I wanted to bring up AMAY Health. They just raised a $15 million Series A led by Quiet Capital. And Tachyon has the key thing here, which is why I really like this company. So they quote, "bring resources, including family and individual therapy, social workers, psychiatric care, and medicine

• 4:47Speaker 01

  management, all under one physical roof." If you have a very ill family member, mental or physical, having a one stop shop for their care is amazing because then you're not piecing together different providers, different insurances, and so forth. So I think AMAY Health is one of those companies that I look at, I'm like, this is an awesome company. And then I'm like, wait a minute, it's venture backed?

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Well, my exact thought, I think it's a great concept. I think it's needed, especially in the case of severe mental illness. But I was struggling a little bit to understand, I guess, where the tech angle is. And I'm thinking it has to do with the data that it's collecting and using AI to go through that data so that it can help improve care. I mean, I don't know, Kirsten, what do you think?

• 5:30Kirsten Korosec?

  Well, I guess my very first question was, why did this not exist before? Mental health issues are not new. And just like putting aside the tech play for a moment, just putting everything under one umbrella, has this never existed before? Or has it, but just not as efficiently?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  I think the issue here is just money. And I don't think that people who have the most severe mental illnesses are the ones that have the biggest checkbooks with which to write checks.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  I mean, it's a good point. There are psychiatrists, of course, that can treat severe mental illness, but they are very... Very expensive. And even if you have insurance, it may not be covered. A psychiatric visit may not be covered. So imagine people who either don't have insurance or not great insurance, getting the care they need can be next to impossible.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  You know what we should do, Mary Ann, is we should stop treating teeth and brain as if they're entirely different fields of health. And instead, we should have insurance that covers you versus everything but your face bones and your squishy bits, you know?

• 6:42Kirsten Korosec?

  It sounds like another startup idea, Alex, that you should maybe look into. Or maybe there's one out there that we can write about.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Didn't Amazon try that and didn't it not work?

• 6:51Kirsten Korosec?

  It didn't really work.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:53Kirsten Korosec?

  There was a question, though, about the data platform and just to touch on that really briefly. So the company is using AI to go through just reams of data that it collects at its clinics to find ways to continue to improve the care. So there should be an improvement over time and some efficiencies. And I think we're seeing that in other areas of healthcare of how AI is being used.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I though, I gotta say, of all the AI things, we're gonna use AI on the data. Sounds to me the most like a sprinkling of AI pixie dust on the company. But that said, I do not want to be rude. I think MA is doing cool things and I'm very hopeful that their model works and scales and we take better care of one another.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Did we mention they raised a $15 million Series A led by Quiet Capital? I'm not sure if we mentioned that.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  I thought I did, but given that right now, my brain is full of cotton candy and little bits of rap. You know, I don't think I'm actually too confident.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Well, just in case you didn't, I didn't have to mention it again. But Kirsten, there's more from Motional this week. What's going on there?

• 7:52Kirsten Korosec?

  Yeah. So if you remember, there was some news that Motional, which is the AV startup that is, was really born out of a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, which is an automotive supplier. And it was supposed to be a $4 billion joint venture. Earlier this year, Aptiv was like, yeah, mm mm, actually, JK, our business isn't doing awesome. We don't really want to allocate any more money towards. This venture, which is really more, if you think about it, frontier tech. We're gonna not only do that, but we'd like to lessen our holdings. So the big question came around was would Hyundai step up or would emotional fold? Would another external investor come in?

• 8:35Kirsten Korosec?

  Hyundai stepped forward and really it's a billion, about a billion dollar investment. About 475 million going directly into emotional and the remaining to buy not all, but a lot of the shares from Aptiv. This week, we had a scoop that kind of talks about the consequences of getting that money. Which is you can't just think of this as, oh, that's a runway for a year. Instead, major restructuring. So what's going to happen now is we got the little inside tip and then ended up reporting it out. But emotional is ceasing all commercial operations. So they still have a human safety driver behind the wheel, but they have a ride hailing service in partnership on the Lyft network and on the Uber network in Vegas. That's not happening anymore.

• 9:20Kirsten Korosec?

  They had a partnership with Uber Eats in Santa Monica. That's not happening anymore. So think of all of the commercial operations, which really they were using as a test bed in a way. But getting closer to that commercial, that's done. And they're also pushing back their plans to launch a fully driverless service. So no human in the loop anymore, at least behind the wheel. That was supposed to happen this year. Now it's pushed to 2026. So it's all about focusing on core tech and it's a lot of layoffs, y'all. A lot.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  It seems like it. I mean, I think one question I do have though, Kirsten, why do you think they're doing this? Why the delay?

• 9:58Kirsten Korosec?

  So they internally talked about a couple of things, but we're seeing this as a problem throughout. First of all, there was in the hype cycle of AVs, a lot of, well, there was some hubris for sure. And excitement about, and this is across the entire industry. This isn't just emotional about launching by 2019 driverless, right? Those timelines have long since gone. And what a lot of companies are finding is just the cost per mile to operate a commercial service is incredibly expensive. And in some cases, the tech isn't quite there, meaning the component cost is really high. What it takes to operate in safely in the way that they want is just incredibly expensive.

• 10:42Kirsten Korosec?

  And so then companies have to make a choice. Yeah. Do we? Continue on this track in which we know we're going to burn X amount, like about 475 million in a year? Or do we focus just completely on the core tech? Get rid of all that commercial operation stuff until costs come down and the tech becomes so good that then the cost of operating is lower? And we're seeing this happen across the board, actually. And we have seen this played out over a couple of years. Companies kind of going back and even Waymo, which is very much commercially operating. There is some sense that they are going to have to probably get some outside funding as well at some point to continue.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Waymo, isn't that owned by Alphabet? Isn't Alphabet doing dividends and buybacks? Wow, it's almost like companies that get to be that big end up focusing more on pleasing Wall Street than doing innovative work.

• 11:38Kirsten Korosec?

  No comment.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Anyways, I just ran the math. Hyundai is worth 59 trillion Korean won. So I had to, I didn't know how to convert that. It's worth like 43.3 billion dollars right now. And I pulled up the company's earnings, good cash flow, good cash position. So they can afford this and Hyundai, to be clear, not Alphabet. So I think in this case, it makes a lot of sense.

• 11:59Kirsten Korosec?

  Well, the, the interesting thing here is that we saw what happened to Argo, which was backed by Ford and VW, in which in that case Ford and VW looked at how much more money that they were going to have to invest to bring this to commercial status. And they blinked and they pulled out. And then Argo died. And then instead they decided, oh, we're going to focus on automated driving in like advanced driver assistance systems and also have a very small sort of team focused on that higher levels of automation, what we would consider like robotaxi stuff. So it could have been a lot worse promotional, that could have happened. And I'm not saying it won't, but looking at Hyundai, this is a company that is very interested in robotics and AI. They own Boston Dynamics, don't forget.

• 12:44Kirsten Korosec?

  So they are interested in some of this frontier tech and they seem committed. But let's just say in more realistic terms, let's not light all the cash on fire. Let's be a little bit more pragmatic about it.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Speaking of robotics, my deal of the week is a fun one. It's a company called Lucid Bots. Christine wrote about it, and this really caught my attention for a couple of reasons. One, it's based out of North Carolina, my home state, which I love. There's not very many companies that we talk about that are out of North Carolina. But more importantly, what it does. So it started out by having developed these drones to clean windows and like really high-rise buildings and things like that, which as you know, is scary, scary, scary. My heart would drop anytime I would see that when I used to work in a high-rise building and I'd see a person like on the side there trying to clean the windows. I was just terrified that something was going to happen and they were going to fall.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  So Lucid Bots, they years ago actually came up with this line of drones to clean windows in tall places. And they were even in Y Combinator's 2019 cohort. But over time, they started getting asked by customers, can your drones do things like clean sidewalks, driveways, you know, roof, building facades, stuff like that? And at first they were kind of like, hmm, you know, a drone on a flat surface? We don't see how that would work. So they built a robot to do it, which I think was a great way to meet customer demand and grow the business. So they built a lavobot, a pressure washing robot.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  All right. And if you want to know what these look like, the lavobot looks like a mix between one of those robots they use to disarm bombs and a lawnmower. And then the other one looks like a DJI drone that has a bit of a thing for water. But they're really, really cool. And I love this because I think we often think about, what is it, Kirsten? Level five self-driving is like the goal for robots and stuff. But mostly robots are for industrial applications. And as someone who has done a lot of pressure washing on concrete, let me tell you, it's boring. So bring on the robots. I think this is so cool. And if they can do this with just a $9 million Series A, bro, someone get them an extra zero, you know? I'm really curious what they can do with a lot of money, because this is a lot of work with not much.

• 15:03Kirsten Korosec?

  Oh, be careful about giving any startup too much money because sometimes that's not a good thing. They can become less efficient. So let's not do that. But to me, what's really interesting is watching sort of how autonomous driving and also robotics has evolved in the past, let's say, five or six years. And a lot of autonomous vehicle startups that went bust kind of reimagined, maybe the founders went and started a new startup, all focused on industrial applications. And it's the boring stuff, but it's the make money now stuff, which I think is really interesting. Plus, some, I think, component costs have come down in robotics. There's been, you know, certainly progression in compute that now makes these

• 15:47Kirsten Korosec?

  things more possible than ever before. And I think you're right, like, having industrial robotics makes so much more sense than some of the gee whiz tech that's more consumer facing, and is a lot riskier.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the company did just over three and a half million in revenue in 2023. Apparently, executives say they've been on an exponential clip for the last three years, refreshing that they actually shared a revenue number as well.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Did you say three and a half million?

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  It's too bad they're not an AI company. They'd be worth $7 trillion.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness. Right. They actually do have AI-driven software, but yeah.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Dang it. I should just presume now that everything is an AI startup.

• 16:30Kirsten Korosec?

  Everything has a little AI pixie dust.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  Everything does.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Except for Equity, artisanal, handmade, no AI podcasting, just for you guys.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know. I think we all agree. It's a cool company. I'll be curious to see where it goes in the future and see what else they're going to be doing in a couple of years. Well, now we've got to move on to break, but after the break, we'll be talking about Startup Bank Mercury and what it's branching out into next.

• 16:59Kirsten Korosec?

  Maryann, so you've been writing a lot about startup neo-bank Mercury. So what's the latest update on them?

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, so a few weeks ago, they they announced that they were moving into personal banking. So what that means is they started actually about five years ago as mainly a startup bank, digital bank for startups, rather, offering banking services for these startups. Now, let's be clear, I have to always point this out. When we talk about these neo-banks, they're not actually banks. They're partnered with banks, but they are digital banks. Now, did I confuse you enough there?

• 17:33Speaker 01

  The way that I think about this is that they're a digital wrapper around someone else's old school trad bank.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. That's why I have to just be clear that I call them a neo-bank, not a bank.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Anyway, so a few weeks ago, they said, hey, we're getting into personal banking. And what they were doing with that is similar to like what another company we talked about recently was doing until it pivoted. But they were like, okay, our business customers, they could be personal clients. So it's looking to cater to, you know, a premium sort of demographic. Then this week it said, okay, well, now we're going to be launching software to layer on top of our business banking accounts so that we can offer our banking customers bill pay, spend management, invoicing. So what that means is effectively going head to head with the likes of Brex and Ramp and numerous others in this space in the expense management category, as if we needed another player.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  But anyway, Mercury said that this has kind of been its plan all along was to build the digital bank and then layer on the software on top of it.

• 18:39Kirsten Korosec?

  So I think it's fine to have competition, but let's see how many of these can actually exist in the space. So if I get this straight, then most of their clientele are other startup founders. And now they're looking to sort of some stickiness to what their services are and have these same folks use numerous services. Is that the idea?

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, Kirsten, I think, I think you hit the nail on the head. But interestingly, when I spoke to Ahmad, CEO and co-founder, I was curious about that because they, you know, they kind of advertise themselves as a startup bank. But actually startups make up less than 40% of its customer base today because they've kind of diversified a little bit over the years. But yeah, I think that that's what exactly what they want to do, just with their customers in general is add the stickiness. And so they'll be charging a subscription if their clients decide to layer on the software, they'll be charging a subscription. So Mercury will then now, instead of just making money off of interchange and that sort of thing, will make money through an annual subscription fee.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  And that will range depending on the tier of the paid plan from $35 to $350 a month.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Okay. So you know how we joke that like every single social networking service ends up being exactly the same? I really feel the same way about like B2B fintech. Like, of course, they're going to expand into bill pay and try to offer more accounts. What do they want? They want more deposits and more total money flowing through their platform. So in reality, what we should do is we should just map out each of the major players, the Brex's, the Rams, the Mercury's, and then figure out what the end point is and then just draw straight lines and track their progress along that axis. Because they're all going to end up being the exact same thing with just a different brand attached to them. How much innovation is there here, really?

• 20:20Speaker 00

  I mean, Mercury says it has over 200,000 customers sending $4 billion in outgoing payments every month via its platform. So they're claiming there's plenty of money movement already. They're going to try to make it easier for them.

• 20:32Kirsten Korosec?

  So how are they maintaining competitiveness? So you can do either do that on price, so like lower subscription fees, so it's a better value or more services. But to Alex's point, it seems like they're all starting to kind of look the same. So how are they going to win, I guess?

• 20:49Speaker 00

  We'll see. I mean, this is just an increasingly crowded space. Everyone's got an opinion about it. Ramp, for example, entered Bill Pay, I think it was a year or two, maybe two years ago. Claims now that that's one of its fastest growing segments. Brex got into software too about two years ago and claimed it was making a big push into the enterprise. So again, these are huge categories. There's room for multiple players. But it is interesting just how many startups are focused on this space. So what is it going to take to create a winner? That I'm not sure.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Well, I think all these companies are very, very cool, but they should just go public already because my God, I'm bored of them raising money and doing this all. Brex has been around for like, what, 7,000 years now? You know, Ram's a little younger, but I mean, dear God, what more do they need? It's time.

• 21:38Kirsten Korosec?

  You just want more IPOs.

• 21:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I didn't mean to show up today ill and then just be a complete cranky pain in the ass, but that does appear to be my mood. I'm sorry, everybody, I will try to be fun again.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Always fun. Anyway, let's, let's move on. There's actually a bunch of M and A activity this week, which, you know, we all thought there was going to be more of that last year in the beginning of this year. So M and A turned out to be surprisingly less, what's the word, prevalent than we.

• 22:05Kirsten Korosec?

  It was light.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  Light.

• 22:06Kirsten Korosec?

  On the lighter side. You know, it was the dinner salad of M and A activity.

• 22:12Speaker 00

  Right. We were all expecting more, all expecting more of it. But then this week, we actually had three deals, not one, not two, but three deals. So one of those was DocuSign acquiring an AI powered contract management firm called Lexian. And then Samsung is going to acquire a French AI ultrasound startup, Sonyo, for 92.7 million. And then we had the confirmation of a deal that Marina Temkin actually scooped a couple of weeks back about Akamai acquiring NoName. So yeah, three, three separate deals in one week. What do you guys think about that?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  The first thing that I want to say is the Akamai NoName deal is interesting because it is a, NoName is an API security company and they raised at around a billion dollars in very late 2021. And so, you know, three years later and change, we are now seeing what they're actually worth. And the answer is a little under half of that. So to me, I mean, and no shame against NoName selling for 450, this is a big accomplishment. Well done. But I do think it goes to show just how, how crazy things were there for a minute. And now we are seeing the result of those exuberant rounds now.

• 23:20Kirsten Korosec?

  The right sizing, I guess, right? Like the right sizing of deals. We saw so much crazy activity in like 2020, 2021. And now a lot of those valuations have come back down to earth. I'm just going to see how many cliches I can put in a single sentence. What I'm curious about is, and I don't know if any of you have the answer, which is, I wonder how long these deals have been in the works for? Because on the venture side, I'm finding that yes, there are some big deals happening like in AVs. We just talked about Motion a minute ago, and then there was Wave with a billion dollars this week. It was hard to get across the finish line. Those were taking a long time. How long were these acquisitions taking? Is it, is it sort of at that same trajectory where they're

• 24:03Kirsten Korosec?

  happening, but they're just taking forever to happen?

• 24:06Speaker 01

  The only thing I can really say there is I don't get the vibe that we're seeing bidding wars. So I'm presuming that the pace of these deals getting done is not like a days ago, but relaxed. You know, I don't think anyone's in a huge danger. I mean, there's two things that drive a deal to go faster. One is the company's about to die or two, everyone wants to buy it. And so everyone, you know, gets busy with the checkbook. These all feel much more relaxed. So I, I, I don't think that they're moving too fast, but also I don't get the idea that they're taking eight years to get done.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, one of the things about DocuSign is that it's apparently itself exploring a sale to private equity when it made, and when it made this deal. And then something that caught my attention is Lexian. I hope I pronounced that correctly. They paid $165 million for the company, which had raised about $35 million in venture capital prior. So I was actually kind of surprised by that because I feel like lately, when I've been reading about M and A activity, the acquisition price, when it is revealed is either less or close to the amount of money that a company raised. So in this case, this company actually sold for, you know, a good amount more than it raised.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Five, five X more or less, but I, I think the reason that's the case is DocuSign is like the best example of a point solution that got very, very big and now needs to diversify. So if you do e-signature, why not also do contract workflow automation with all those signatures you have on your platform? And if you're DocuSign, you're worth a couple billion, splashing out for, what is that? You know, a dozen, dozen million, more or less. I mean, it's just not that much money in terms of market cap terms. So I, I think it makes a lot of sense. The problem though, is if you just add a lot of decals to your car, you tend to have the same engine under the hood, to make a Kirsten Coric analogy here, zoom, zoom, vroom, vroom.

• 26:00Kirsten Korosec?

  Thank you.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  So I don't know exactly how much this is going to help, but I like the direction of the deal. It makes sense to me that way.

• 26:05Kirsten Korosec?

  Yeah. DocuSign is interesting to me. Do we know how many other acquisitions they've made at all over the last few years? Like, is this how they're diversifying is same engine, but just layering?

• 26:18Speaker 00

  They acquired a couple of companies, one in 2018, SpringCM, a cloud platform for sales contract management, and then Seal Software in February 2020, companies specializing in AI-driven contract analytics.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  AI pixie dust and some extensions to the product line. Who doesn't love it? What more can you ask for in 2024 or before?

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Well, we're going to put the tech news aside for now because we do have an announcement to make. Our dear Alex, whom we all adore, is leaving TechCrunch, which means he'll no longer be on Equity. It's an understatement to say we're going to miss Alex. I've worked with Alex now almost seven years straight with the exception of maybe a little bit less than a year in there. And, you know, he's been the heart of this show for a long time. We're going to miss you, Alex.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Well, the coolest and best part of Equity has been the awesome people I've gotten to work with over the years, including this lovely crew. Right now, we have Kristen and Mary Ann, we have Teresa behind the dials and knobs, and also on the edit. But if you go back to 2017, when we started, it was Chris Gates, Katie Roof, Matt Lindley, and myself. And then over time, Connie Loizis was a host for a while. Grace helped step in with editing. We've had Kel, we've had Maggie, and of course, now Teresa. And I'm not going to go through every single person who's been a co-host over the years because that would take too long. But I can't tell you how much I talk to the Equity crew and how much of my life it is I'm going to miss it immensely.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  Alex, you might be leaving, but I kind of feel like we can, you know, bring you on the show as a special guest when you inevitably create some media startup.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Ah, we'll see about that. But yes, a big guest of that. People don't know, here's a little bit of Equity trivia. I joined the Equity crew when we started it, but I didn't work for TechCrunch at the time. I worked for Crunchbase News. And so I used to just kind of walk across Soma in San Francisco to the old TC office and record it, then run back to work. So I have a long history of doing this show kind of on a casual basis, if you will, from a professional perspective. So I will not be far. And I'm going to be listening. I'm going to be cheering. I'm just so proud that this project I got to help start is going to keep on going. It's always been bigger than any one person. And we have so many brilliant, brilliant people that are going to rock. I happen to know who else is joining the show down the road a little bit, and I'm super excited.

• 28:45Speaker 00

  I'm particularly going to miss your tank tops.

• 28:48Kirsten Korosec?

  Which I'm seeing now. Also, I think that the listeners should know that he was wearing a bathrobe. So he's already like coasting into retirement. I don't know what's happening, but stay tuned on that.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  Let me tell you, you've never seen me in a bathrobe before because I've never had COVID while trying to work before. It's quite the combination.

• 29:09Kirsten Korosec?

  You look cozy. You look cozy.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  This is just really an example, though, of the dedication Alex has had to equity over the years. I mean, here he has COVID, has a baby to help take care of too. And he's still on here. He's still showing up reflective of just how he's been over the years overall.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  It's easy to like, to care a lot about a team like this. I mean, think about the people who who did that who are no longer with us. Like Katie Roof was instrumental in bringing on so many venture capital guests early on. Lindley set the tone for how fast we could talk on a recording. Chris Gates was the glue that, you know, held the initial show together. And then Henry Pickavet was the one who provided a little bit of cover internally to try this crazy idea when it wasn't the most popular idea at TechCrunch. So yeah, it's been such a privilege and such a pleasure. And I, the only thing I'm going to say is I'm just bummed that I will not be able to be at Disrupt onstage with the Equity Crew, but I will be cheering from like 20 feet away.

• 30:04Speaker 00

  We're gonna miss you so much, Alex. Aside from being brilliant, you're just, you know, a wonderful and kind human being and we love you.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I love you too, Mary Ann. We've gotten to work together so much over the years. It's been a blast. Several different jobs in a row. Yeah. And we're still gonna, yeah, I'm not dying.

• 30:18Kirsten Korosec?

  Right. And I'm, depending on where you go next, I do 100% plan on texting you every single time an S1 drops so we can talk about the numbers because I am gonna miss my numbers guy. I'm gonna miss that, of course. Your enthusiasm for financials.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  And all the wonderful analogies.

• 30:36Kirsten Korosec?

  And the swearing. I'm gonna have to take that up. I will gladly take up that baton.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Someone needs to carry that forward. And this is a team relay. You know, I don't know how many episodes you've done, north of 700, I think, total to date. So here's to 700 more. And I can't wait to watch you guys absolutely crush it. But Mary Ann, even though I am shuffling off into the night, the show is not.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  No, Equity is not going anywhere. We'll be back with a new episode for you on Monday, led by a familiar voice, Becca Scutac. Becca, as regular listeners know, is also the host of our sister show Found, so don't forget to check that out as well. Until next time, you can follow Equity under the handle at EquityPod on X and Threads. We'll talk to you soon.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Equity is produced by Teresa Loquenzolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our illustrator, and we'd like to give a big thanks to our audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch Audio Products. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.