Boot Ends and AI Showdowns: The Chronicles of 2023

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Hello and welcome back to Equitya podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuances behind the headlines.

This is the first of a two-part series we’ve created for you looking back at critical topics from 2023. It’s been a very, very busy year in the worlds of tech, startups, and venture capital — so busy that we asked your 2023 in one titleand you delivered!

In Part 1, Anna Maria and Alex delves into a number of key topics:

• Venture capital in 2023: The numbers started the year poorly, but got a little better as time went on. Partly because year-to-date metrics became less burdensome as we got deeper into the year thanks to 2022 results that were skewed downward. However, there is a lot of capital in the market, so we close the year away from the freeze.
• Elsewhere in business? California’s new diversity reporting rule came up, we discussed which stage of startups struggle the most and even threw in some new fintech unicorns.
• Then there was fintech in 2023: Despite a hot start to fintech M&A to start the year, deals slowed as the year progressed. Although we did see a handful of critical trades. Alex mentioned some neighboring fintech deals that he thought were also noteworthy, to round out our recap.
• Then we had to touch it creator economy in 2023: Remember this was the year we saw the writer’s strike, chaos on Reddit, brouhaha on Twitch, and the rise of many alts on Twitter. Busy time for creators, even if past hopes that the creator middle class will expand faster than it has.
• And then came the return of key-person syndrome, which we’ll explain more on the show!

On to Part 2 – coming soon! — we brought in several TechCrunch experts to help us dig into the SBF test and crypto in general, the OpenAI fracas and where this technology stands today, and more. Stay close to equity! We have a lot planned for you.