Equity Monday: Instagram pauses youth product as Amplitude, Warby Parker prep public offerings

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You […]

Thailand’s fintech startup Ascend Money lands $150M at a $1.5B valuation

Ascend Money, the Thailand-based fintech startup behind TrueMoney, an e-wallet service, announced today it has raised a $150 million Series C round at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The Series C round was led by Charoen Pokphand Group, which is a major shareholder of Ascend Money, with participation from Bow Wave Capital Management and returning […]

And the winner of Startup Battlefield is…

Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week under the guidance of Chris and Grace, along with TechCrunch’s Neesha Tambe. Neesha is one of our best and is the leading light of the Startup Battlefield event at our yearly Disrupt conference. That made her the perfect guest — that’s precisely what we discussed on the show today. From a tight […]

Latin America finds a champion in SoftBank Group International CEO Marcelo Claure

Since first announcing it was planting a stake in the ground in the region in early 2019, SoftBank  — from its own balance sheet, it says — has plugged more than $5 billion into the region, and it expects that number to top $8 billion by year’s end.