Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s weekly look at the increasingly troubled venture capital industry.
This week Katie Roof and myself — Alex Wilhelm — were joined by Menlo Ventures’ Matt Murphy, a venture denizen who previously worked for Kleiner Perkins. Matthew Lynley is still on vacation, though he was recently spotted atop a clouded mountain reciting math textbooks to himself. He’ll be back next week.
It was a busy week as the Summer Lull appears ready to miss its entrance entirely and keep the current news cyclone spinning straight into the fall. But, we narrowed our work to the most critical topics of the week.
In order:
- Snap’s share price has fallen dramatically in recent weeks, adding to its woes sourced from a lackluster Q1 earnings report. Snap now trades below its IPO price. Its declines are worrisome for other unicorns looking to defend private valuations in the public sphere.
- The venture capital sexual harassment scandal continued this week, with allegations leading to the ouster of Frank Artale from Ignition Partners. More on that, and a round-up of the rest of the mess here.
- Uber grew about 10 percent last quarter and is now working with a former competitor in Russia. If that sounds familiar, just repeat the word ‘China’ in your head about seven times until you recall.
- And, très surprise, WeWork raised more money. Because why not? What asset-light co-working startup shouldn’t be worth $20 billion, right?
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