Are megafunds squeezing out small VCs and distorting the seed market?

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

This is our Friday show, and today, Mary Ann Azevedo and Alex Wilhelm took on the week’s biggest tech, startup and venture capital news. Here’s what we got into:

Deals of the Week: Ruth Foxe Blader is leaving Anthemis, albeit slowly; Exponent has a second fund set up, but without a pure fintech focus; and Alex wanted to talk about why 2024 could be a pretty alright year for crypto.
Layoffs, shutdowns: Frontdesk laid off 200 people and is shutting down, which makes for a good conversation about its business model. Countdown Capital is also throwing in the towel, due in part to larger multistage funds inflating the entry point for hot seed deals. It’s a trend worth keeping an eye on.
Helping one another: Israel is working to support its startup industry, which has been disrupted by the Israel-Hamas war. We also discussed how the new Tech for Palestine group was formed.

And that’s Equity for this week! We’ll be back on Monday!

For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.