Equity

Self-driving truck startup Waabi's billion-dollar fundraise isn't just about trucks.  

 

The deal, for $750 million up front plus another $250 million from Uber tied to deployment milestones, marks a major expansion into robotaxis for the company founded by former Uber AI chief Raquel Urtasun. It also feels like another chip from Uber on the autonomous vehicle roulette table. With more than 20 AV partners worldwide, the question isn't just whether Waabi can deliver on its plans to deploy over 25,000 robotaxis, but whether Uber's bet-on-everything strategy actually works. 

 

Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Sean O'Kane and Anthony Ha discussed Uber's AV partnership strategy, why Waabi's "simulation-first" approach might be different, and more of the week's headlines. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Anduril's drone race recruitment stunt and whether it's the future of hiring or just good PR 


Phia’s $35M raise for an AI shopping assistant as brick-and-mortar stores close their doors 


Northwood Space's $100M Series B and the booming space infrastructure market 


Who’s really winning in TikTok's messy US ownership deal, and the competitors trying to capitalize 


The IPO window cracking open, and how SpaceX plans to go through it 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

02:13 Palmer Luckey's bold recruiting strategy 

04:04 Phia raises $35M for sustainable shopping 

06:27 Browser extensions & the privacy problem 

09:59 Northwood Space's $100M Series B & Space Force contract 

12:17 The rise of dual-use space companies 

14:01 Waabi's $1B valuation & beyond trucking 

16:36 Uber's strategy: Betting on every AV partner 

19:12 TikTok's US deal & immediate outage 

21:46 TikTok competitors gain ground 

24:03 IPO window opening: Ethos, Serve, and SpaceX 

27:57 Will Elon actually take SpaceX public this time? 

29:11 Outro 

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SpaceX is reportedly lining up four major Wall Street banks for a 2026 IPO that could provide the reset the market needs. 

The company just completed a tender offer at an $800 billion valuation, and secondary market demand is through the roof. If SpaceX goes public anywhere near its rumored $1.5 trillion valuation, it could trigger an IPO cascade for other late-stage unicorns like OpenAI, Stripe, and Databricks. 

Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan spoke with Greg Martin, Managing Director at Rainmaker Securities, to discuss why this IPO feels different, how tech employees are cashing out through secondary markets before companies go public, and what investors are actually looking for in pre-IPO shares. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Which other late-stage unicorns are seeing the most secondary trading action right now. 


Why SpaceX is ready to go public, despite previously saying it “wouldn't IPO until rockets were flying to Mars regularly” (and why Martin doesn’t think SpaceX will continue on its debut path if the market tanks) 


The "Elon halo effect" and how much of SpaceX's valuation is based on Musk himself 


What happens when SpaceX employees want to sell shares before the IPO 

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:39 The Booming Secondary Market for Pre-IPO Shares
04:06 SpaceX as an IPO Bellwether
06:31 Why Elon Musk Changed His Mind on Going Public
10:04 The Race to a Trillion-Dollar Valuation
12:27 The Elon Halo Effect on Valuations
15:17 What Signals an Upcoming IPO?
17:50 How Secondaries Drive Better Price Discovery
20:47 How SpaceX Secondaries Actually Work
24:03 What Investors Want from Pre-IPO Companies
25:11 The Have and Have-Not World of Secondaries
26:42 Outro

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The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos felt different this year, and not just because Meta and Salesforce took over storefronts on the main promenade. AI dominated the conversation in a way that overshadowed traditional topics like climate change and global poverty, and the CEOs weren't holding back. There was public criticism of trade policy, warnings about AI bubbles popping, and a lot of talk about what comes next for the industry. 

 

Meanwhile, back in Silicon Valley, AI startup Humans& raised a $480 million seed round with no product on the market, just a vision for "social intelligence" AI and a team of ex-Anthropic, Google, and xAI employees. 

 

Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane discuss why raising hundreds of millions before building a product is apparently the new norm, which conversations took over Davos this week, and more. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear more from the week, including: 


Whether Meta's 10% layoffs at Reality Labs means the end for the metaverse, and who’s defending Meta's VR investments 


Serve Robotics' acquisition of Diligent, a startup bringing delivery bots into hospitals 


OpenAI’s rumored earbuds and what we expect to see from the AI company’s first hardware product. 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
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Today on Equity, we're teaming up with our newest podcast, Build Mode.

In this interview, Build Mode host Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Ross Fubini of XYZ Ventures and Leslie Feinzaig of Graham & Walker Ventures to pull back the curtain on how VCs build their own go-to-market strategies.

They dig into what it’s really like raising a first fund, why founder-market fit applies to investors too, and how the best investor relationships start years before you ever need the money.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
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AI companies are clustering around healthcare and fast. 

In just the past week, OpenAI bought health startup Torch, Anthropic launched Claude for Health, and Sam Altman-backed MergeLabs closed a $250 million seed round at an $850 million valuation. The money and products are pouring into health and voice AI, but so are concerns about hallucination risks, inaccurate medical information, and massive security vulnerabilities in systems handling sensitive patient data. 

Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane dig into why the AI world is suddenly obsessed with health care, what other products can expect an AI-makeover, and more. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:  


How Anthropic's co-work tool could threaten Salesforce and other enterprise software giants 


Bandcamp’s move against AI, banning AI-generated music from its platform 


Why fusion energy is heating up, with startups like Type One Energy suddenly raising hundreds of millions 


The latest on Luminar's bankruptcy and a potential bidding war overits LIDAR assets 

Chapters: 

00:00 - Introduction  

00:29 - Waymo testing in New York City? 

02:13 - Bandcamp bans AI-generated music  

04:57 - Luminar's bankruptcy and LIDAR fire sale  

10:28 - Type One Energy's fusion funding frenzy  

16:10 - AI's healthcare land grab  

23:28 - Voice AI deals heat up  

25:26 - Anthropic's co-work tool threatens enterprise software 

Subscribe to Equity on ⁠YouTube⁠,⁠ Apple Podcasts⁠,⁠ Overcast⁠,⁠ Spotify⁠ and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on⁠ X⁠ and⁠ Threads⁠, at @EquityPod. 
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