Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunchs venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week TechCrunchs Silicon Valley Editor Connie Loizos and I jammed out on a couple topics as Alex Wilhelm was out managing his fake stock game spreadsheets or something.
(The jury is out on whether this was a good or bad thing.)First up is Twitter buying Smyte, a startup targeting fixes for spam and abuse.
This is, of course, Twitters perennial problem and its one that its been trying to fix for some time but definitely not there yet.
The deal terms werent disclosed, but Twitter to its credit has seen its stock basically double this year (and almost triple in the past few years).
Twitter is going into a big year, with the United States midterm elections, the 2018 World Cup, and the Sacramento Kings probably finding some way to screw up in the NBA draft.
Thisll be a close one to watch over the next few months as we get closer to the finals for the World Cup and the elections.
Twitter is trying to bill itself as a home for news, focusing on live video, and a number of other things.Then we have Juul Labs, an e-cigarette company that is somehow worth $10 billion.
The Information reports that the PAX Labs spinout from 2015 has gone from a $250 million valuation all the way to $10 billion faster than you can name each scooter company thats raising a new $200 million round from Sequoia that will have already been completed by the time you finish this sentence.
Obviously the original cigarette industry was a complicated one circa the 20th century, so this one will be an interesting one to play out over the next few years.Finally, we have meditation app Calm raising a $27 million round at a $250 million pre-money valuation.
Calm isnt the only mental health-focused startup thats starting to pick up some momentum, but its one thats a long time coming.
I remember stumbling upon Calm.com back in 2012, where youd just chill out on the website for a minute or so, so its fun to see a half-decade or so later that these apps are showing off some impressive numbers.Thats all for this week, well catch you guys next week.
We apologize in advance if Alex makes it back on to the podcast.Equitydrops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast, Pocketcast, Downcast and all the casts.