Natasha Mascarenhas
Reporter
The Latest from Natasha Mascarenhas
Community is the new AI
Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week with Grace on the dials, which meant that we had a flat lovely time recording Equity for you. Of course, Equity is TechCrunch’s ventu
The metaverse is coming for Squid Game
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, the time of the week when we niche do
Contrary Capital’s $20M Fund II is all about community-first investments
When Eric Tarczynski was first building Contrary Capital, he noticed there was an absence of venture capital firms focused on entrepreneurs within universities. So, he launched a $2.2 million debut fu
The full-stack approach, but this time sans status quo
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. Emerging founders and investors in tech must be exuding extrem
Reid Hoffman on the evolution of ‘blitzscaling’ amid the pandemic
"Blitzscaling itself isn’t the goal," said Hoffman. "Blitzscaling is being inefficient; it’s spending capital inefficiently and hiring inefficiently; it’s being uncertain about your business mod
Where and when to spend your recently raised dollars
'It’s easier to raise and harder to spend these days, because there’s such a high demand for talent.'
Here for influencer-branded mac and cheese
Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week under the guidance of Chris and Grace, meaning that we were running full-strength for our roundup of this super busy week. Before we ho
Finding fraud in a world of fast-moving deals
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We got the crew together — Natasha and Danny and Alex — thi
Employers are consumer edtech’s next beta test
Entrepreneurs need to convince employers to turn to edtech for a solution more elusive than even education: motivation.
AngelList returns to its founder-focused roots, with a twist
AngelList this week launched AngelList Stack, a new suite of products that will compete with Carta in providing services to help founders start, operate and maintain ownership over their companies. Th
Fiveable lands $10M Series A to become ‘the hallways of the educational internet’
As the pandemic continues to unevenly play out, the backdrop of our days has never felt more stagnant. While tech workers may turn to virtual HQs or Twitter Spaces for spontaneous chats, high schoole
EdSights gets a $5 million Series A for student retention services
When sister duo Claudia and Carolina Recchi were first building EdSights, they used a big guiding question. “In a perfect world [where] we somehow had a magic wand that allowed us to collect the dat
When the biggest Disruption is to just sit down and focus
Welcome to Startups Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. And just like that, TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 has come to an e
Duolingo doesn’t want to disrupt the college degree
CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn returned to Disrupt this year to explain how the sophistication of public markets impacts the company's strategy.
Freshworks, Toast go public and we have takes
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today we got the gang together — Natasha and Danny and Al
Prenome could help pregnant women better predict and manage gestational diabetes
“We’re always trying to stick something up a women’s something.” Stevie Cline, the co-founder of Prenome, is tired of how invasive diagnostic processes are for women, even with modern technolo
Built by a refugee, Enlight’s edtech tool bets it can help students hope harder
Raised in a Tanzania refugee camp, Dieumerci Christel’s first brush with entrepreneurship began with a stick of gum. In the early 2000s, kids in his camp were all gravitating toward a brand of gum n
Executive coaching for employees is complicated and emotional
BetterUp, a reskilling and coaching platform for employees before and beyond the C-suite, is getting in touch with its emotions. This week, the richly funded unicorn startup announced a pair of acquis
A knock against bootstrapping
Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week under the guidance of Chris and Grace, which meant we had the full team. And speaking of teams, Mary Ann is joining the Friday show on a
Reid Hoffman is returning to Disrupt
You’ve probably learned from Reid Hoffman before, either through his inventions, investments or inspirational words. The entrepreneur is the co-founder of LinkedIn, a partner at Greylock and the