A $700M SAFE, IPOs are back, and how one venture fund is transcending borders

Hello, and welcome to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Friday episode, in which we dig through the most critical stories from the week and chat through new and emerging themes.

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts.

This week we had Mary Ann, Becca, and Alex aboard. Becca of course is one of the two hosts of TechCrunch’s Found podcast, which talks to founders about how they built what they did, and how they did it!

Today on Equity, however, here’s what we got into:

• Deals of the Week: Mary Ann wanted to talk about Onyx, a neobank aimed at wealthy early-to-middle career adults. It’s pivoting to B2B and is not, despite what the Internet said, dead. Alex wanted to discuss Montauk Climate, a climate incubator set up by the former co-founder of Casper and the recent Marc Lore/Wonder deal. The climate isn’t doing well, in case you’ve missed the news. So, projects like this are welcome. And Becca brought Ethos Fund to the table, allowing us to discuss cross-border investing.
• The upcoming Saudi AI push: What has lots of capital and is ready to pour it into AI investments? Sure, your local venture scene but also the Saudi Arabian government. Notable venture funds have been flying to the Middle Eastern state to raise capital, but perhaps in the future the capital will come for them.
• How some VCs are holding back an IPO rush: A recent Becca investigation unearthed an interesting finding, namely that it may not be the fault of late-stage founders that their companies are not going public. Their backers might actually be the ones holding the door closed.
• Oh, and Reddit started trading during our recording slot, and it’s doing well!

We are back Monday with more! Chat then!