The fintech funding market is not dead

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. This is our Monday show, coming to you this week on a Tuesday as, hey, yesterday was a holiday for many American workers, in honor of Juneteenth. So, we’re doing our weekly kickoff one day later than usual. Here’s what we got into:

• Stocks are higher globally, while the crypto market is somewhat quiet after a tumultuous few weeks.
• We’re coming up on the end of Q2 2022, which means that we’re at once heading into earnings season (woo!) and another venture capital data set to parse. Get excited.
• Musk has been busy around the world, helping keep Ukraine online, seeing his cars come under some censure in China, and still talking his way through buying twitter.
• In startup-land: LeadSquared raised a huge round, and is now a unicorn. Platform.sh raised a huge round, but we aren’t sure what it is worth. And Stashfin also put a huge amount of capital and debt onto its own books.
• The fintech VC market is still alive, despite warning bells from, well, everywhere. Magic Eden just raised for an NFT marketplace, we note. (Though prices are, yes, coming down.)

That’s our show! We’re back tomorrow and Friday!