Pod Insights Equity Podcast Welcome to Q2, Equity family About this episode Alex is back with the first episode of our Q2 run. Welcome to the new tranch of 2023!
On the show today we riffed through the stock market and crypto sector. The gist? Shares are mixed here in the United States while major crypto tokens are not doing too much.
In startup news, Paris is cracking down on e-scooters after a vote, Zamp Finance raised nearly $22 million for a neat way to keep startup cash safe and yield-friendly, and Fourthline reminded us that applied AI is a sentence that we are going to say again and again this year.
Tesla's Q1 delivery and production numbers are out, and while the beat certain expectations the results come after price cuts. It will be curious to see what the new figures translate to in financial terms when we get the company's financial results.
And then this a16z-Saudi Arabia thing that was a bit weird to chat about, but we took a stab at regardless.
The show is back Wednesday and Friday, we'll see you then!
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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.
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Transcript 0:10 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome back to Equity, the TechCrunch podcast where we unpack the numbers and the nuance behind the headlines. It is April 3rd, 2023. Good morning. This is Alex and the fact that it is April has me stoked. Why is that? Well, it does mean a couple of things. First, it means that we are now in Q2. Oh yeah, that means we're the second quarter, baby. And also it means earnings are going to be upon us and also a huge parcel of venture capital data about Q1. So if you love numbers, it's going to be a great couple of weeks. If you don't, well then, why are you here?
0:45 Speaker 00 Because the new quarter is upon us, let us celebrate by talking about the stock market. Going around the world, shares are mostly higher in Asia. They are mostly higher in Europe and yet they are mixed this morning in pre-market trading here in the US. What is lagging the rest? Well, it's actually technology shares. But don't be too worried. They can't fall that far this week because we are going to have a closed stock market on Friday here in the US. Why is that? Well, it's because of Good Friday. And if you're asking yourself, why is this Friday good? The answer is, I forget. It's something to do with Christianity. Anyways, no stock trading on Friday, so don't expect that. You know what will be trading on Good Friday though, and every single day and every single hour and every single second of the future? Well,
1:28 Speaker 00 it's crypto. Sadly, over in the decentralized economy, things are kind of boring in the last week, at least from a price perspective. The crypto market gap is still bouncing around the 1.1, 1.2 trillion dollar mark that it has been at for what feels like months. Major stable coins this morning? Well, they're holding on to their dollar peg. And if you care about Bitcoin and ETH, well, they're up a point or two in the last week, but really, nothing to write home about. The only thing that I can find in the data this morning that was interesting was more news of the same, which is that the NFT boomlet has continued to deflate. So if you were very excited that for a while there, the NFT market appeared to be having a Lazarus moment. Well, we've kind of
2:10 Speaker 00 reached the peak of that and we're now on the downslide. NFTs, once again, in recession.
2:18 Speaker 00 Turning to our startup news for this morning, what has two wheels and will no longer get croissants? Well, it turns out it's e-scooters. According to TechCrunch, in a major blow to shared micro mobility companies Lime, Dot and TIR, Paris has voted to ban rental e-scooters from its streets. And this matters because a lot of folks are worried that what Paris does, other cities will do as well. So if Paris bans them, well, that could land in other major municipalities. In a referendum on Sunday organized by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Paris residents voted 89% against keeping shared e-scooters in their city. And that means that the three companies that currently pay for contracts to operate
2:58 Speaker 00 in the city of light will have to yank about 15,000 e-scooters by September 1. Seems pretty cut and dry, 89%, September 1. What's the catch? Well, only about 103,000 people turned out to vote, which is about roughly 7.5% of registered Paris voters. So the actual turnout was very, very low. So the actual perspective shown in those votes might not be that representative. Anyways, no matter what, this is hard news for a battered sector. As we all know, American e-scooter company Bird is struggling. American e-scooter company Lime claims to be in better shape, but no matter what, major cities pushing back on the shared mobility model is not
3:38 Speaker 00 good for the health of e-scooter companies around the world. Next up, I have a very neat startup funding round for you today. It is ZAMP Finance. ZAMP Finance just raised $21.7 million in seed funding and has a founder that has a history at Uber. So what does ZAMP do? Well, it offers a treasury management platform that enables businesses worldwide to invest surplus cash in UST bills and notes. And while the platform serves businesses of all sizes, it does not cater to individuals. So why would ZAMP want to help startups put their money into American government debt? Well, it's because US Treasury bills are regarded as a safe investment as they are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government.
4:23 Speaker 00 They have high liquidity, predictable yield, and they also have tax benefits. So why would customers actually want this? Well, founder Amit Jain says that customers, of which many are startups, are not looking for a particular yield or really want to speculate with the cash that they have. Instead, their customers are looking for ways to keep their cash safe in a way that protects them from risks related to currency or institution. Essentially, in the wake of SVB and a rise in inflation, startups just want a place where they can park their cash, make a little yield, and not have the money go poof. My only question here is, this is a pretty stocky seed round, and I'm curious why ZAMP needs $21, $22 million in seed funding just to build this thing. And for our third bit of startup news, how about Fourth Line?
5:08 Speaker 00 It's a company that Ingrid covered for us rather recently, and her intro is absolutely lovely, so I'm just gonna go ahead and read it with you. Roll with me. So do the efforts of malicious hackers and fraudsters to crack into those valuable systems. And so do the efforts of regulators to build better structures to help and avoid that abuse. To help the finance sector meet those demands, an Amsterdam-based startup called Fourth Line has built a set of AI-based solutions to help with identity verification, help businesses comply with anti-money laundering rules, and more. Today, it's announcing a €50 million or $54 million funding round to help expand that technology. Now, a couple of notes. First of all, that is a lot of money.
5:51 Speaker 00 It's a pretty big round, period, but it's gonna really impact Q2 numbers in Holland. And I think it goes to show that applied AI is going to be one of the key themes that we talk about all the rest of 2023.
6:06 Speaker 00 Next up, a car company. Let's talk about Tesla. Results from Q1 are out for the EV company? Well, partially, you'll see what I mean. Tesla said on Sunday, according to TechCrunch, that it delivered 422,875 electric vehicles in the first quarter. And that actually came in ahead of Wall Street estimates of around 420,000 units. The company produced, however, more. It put out 440,808 vehicles in the same period. And if you're curious about the overall geopolitical mix, well, it could... It'll be about 50% of those made in China. The company has also cut prices around the world for its EVs, hoping to, we think, stimulate demand. So we're talking about a recent sales bump, but also a price cut.
6:50 Speaker 00 It's going to be super interesting to see how these numbers actually impact the company's gross margins and overall profitability in Q1, though of course, we won't know about that until Tesla reports earnings. And just so you know, there is some disagreement out there over how good these numbers are or aren't. Tesla shares, as I wrote down my notes this morning, were actually off 4% in pre-market trading. So perhaps investors, or at least some of them, were expecting a bigger result from the recent price cuts.
7:20 Speaker 00 Wrapping up today, here's something that I did not expect. A major American venture capital institution recently went to Saudi Arabia and flattered the kind of ruling regime, if you will. And according to Bloomberg and TechCrunch, Andreessen Horowitz went to Saudi Arabia recently, attending an event organized by a nonprofit backed by one of Saudi Arabia's largest sovereign funds. And they brought along Adam Newman. You've heard of him. He went to talk about flow, of course, which Andreessen Horowitz has backed. And during this overall chat conversation, PR fest, whatever you want to call it, one of the venture group's complaints that it voiced was that after it wrote a blog post saying that it was time to build, the US government didn't do enough. That's just wild to me.
8:05 Speaker 00 And ladies and gentlemen, that is the wrap on our Monday show. Don't, of course, forget that we are on Twitter. We tweet under the handle EquityPod. My name is Alex. That's also my Twitter handle. And I am going to early stage in Boston and the mixer the night before. So if you're in the Northeast and want to come hang out, come to that event. And if you don't know what my day job is, sadly, I don't get to spend all my time podcasting. I am part of the TechCrunch Plus team. And if you need access to that, the code Equity will save you money there as well. Equity is back on Wednesday. We are back on Friday. Of course, if no other banks blow up. If they do, we'll be back sooner than that. In the meantime, hugs, Godspeed, and may you have a lovely Monday. Equity Mondays are hosted by myself, editor in chief of TechCrunch Plus, Alex Wilhelm.
8:48 Speaker 00 We're produced by Teresa Locan Solo with editing by Kel Keller. Bryce Durbin is our illustrator. Alyssa Stringer leads audience development, and Henry Pickavet manages TechCrunch Audio Products. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next week.
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