Solution-Max: Everyone Raises $100M, Pinterest And Zoom Want To Go Public, And HelloSign

Friday, February 1, 2019

Everyone Raises $100M, Pinterest And Zoom Want To Go Public, And HelloSign

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week we recorded as a trio: Connie Loizos holding down the studio with our guest, the ever-present Jeff Clavier of Uncork Capital. I dialed in from the what was the East Coast, back before it froze over.

But while the temperature is low over here, the world’s tech news was anything but slow. Indeed, we had to cram a lot into a little bit of time, so here’s the quick overview to follow as you listen:

Acorns raised a $105 million Series E. The company, best known for its savings product, does a bit more than just that. With its new capital, the service should have more than enough dosh to work to its own betterment, building a wealthfront for its investors and founders alike. A real square deal, if you will.
Stripe also raised another $100 million, but at its $22.5 billion valuation how much money is that really? Not much!
Moving along, it being 2019, we couldn’t avoid chatting about the IPO market. First up was news that Pinterest has bankers. That Big Pint is going public is not a surprise. That this may finally be the year somewhat is; Pinterest has been a perennial IPO possible. We’re excited to see its margins so that we can better grok what it’s worth.
And on the IPO front, Zoom is said to be making progress as well. Connie pointed out that 2018 was the year of the enterprise IPO, and that 2019 is looking more consumer-oriented. But that won’t stop Zoom if its S-1 comes in as healthy as we expect it.
We ran a bit long (woo!) hitting on the SEC, Barrett Daniels, Uber, and more, but we did wrap talking about the Dropbox-HelloSign deal. More of those please, they’re fun to write about.