The new alchemy is turning gold to crypto

Witches, bats, squeaky caldrons and the blockchain

Hello, and welcome to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. And have a good time.

This week Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex (along with our amazing production team Grace, Chris and Kell) took on a host of topics from the public and private markets alike. In our wheelhouse this week:

• An IPO rush: Sure, IPOs are still not keeping up with unicorn births, but the current pace of public offerings has us nattering. Paytm is coming. Sweetgreen as well. NerdWallet and Backblaze to boot. It’s a crowd!
• Alchemy raised $250 million for its blockchain-infra work, reminding us that a16z has all of its eggs in the same ol’ crypto basket.
• Heart to Heart raised $0.75 million for audio-focused dating. And even though we’re not the targeted customer base, we were excited about the founder and his big bet on intention.
• Built by a student, Tasseled wants to help college students get their lives, and credits, together. 
• More on the great Sequoia business model shakeup, building from our comments earlier in the week. We dig into exit timings, and other potential impacts of the change.
• And we got to riff on the Midwest startup-boom, which is a region near and dear to Alex’s heart. And it turns out that Denver is not a Midwest city.

While we’re sad about Danny’s exit, it’s also edifying to have our new crew in place for 2022. Expect nothing less than more Equity than ever.