Salesforce’s silly deal dies as we keep our eyes on Ibotta and Rubrik | Equity Podcast

This episode is presented by invest Puerto Rico if you believe your business Can go anywhere Puerto Rico is the [Music] Place hello and welcome back to equity The Tech runch podcast about the Business of startups where we unpack the Numbers and the Nuance behind the Headlines this is Alex good morning Today is April 22nd 2024 and this is our Monday show where We look back at the weekend and then Take a peek at the week that is to come Over the weekend we had an awesome Interview with Hans tongue a very Well-known venture capitalist I fully Recommend that you give that a listen so After Equity Monday just hit play on the Next episode and we have a treat for you Now on the podcast today we have stocks And crypto including the having an IPO Update then two new venture funds the Demise of an incredibly silly deal and Then an emerging startup cluster that I Think [Music] Rules let us begin with a look at the World of money and that means my Favorite thing in the world which is the Stock market over in Asia Shares are Largely higher today they are mostly up In Europe as well and are set to rise Here in the US at the open how is that For green across the board to start the

Week and it is going to be a very busy Week because we have so very many Earnings reports CNBC writes that about 30% of the S&P 500 will drop their own Results this week but the good news is 73% of the companies that have reported Have beaten estimates so that means for The following list of tech companies The Vibes are good so on Monday we shall Hear earnings from sap and Verizon then Tuesday is Visa Tesla more on that in Just a minute Texas Instruments spot ify And seate and then on Wednesday we begin To hear from the largest tech companies So Meta and then IBM and service now Thursday will bring us more of the big Names Microsoft and alphabet and then Elsewhere T-Mobile atlassian mobile ey Snap Juniper Networks Roku AppFolio Opera and nerd wallet there is something For everyone in there let's get It not to be outdone with the stock Market delou crypto is having its own News cycle and that is all based on the Bitcoin having completing a couple of Days ago what does that mean if you Don't know and don't want to ask your Friends in case they make fun of you I Will explain it means that the minor Rewards for doing the hard computation Work that actually runs the Bitcoin Blockchain has been greatly reduced it's Been cut in half hence the having that Might sound bad why do we care well

Historically the value of Bitcoin has Risen at after a having so some folks Argue that this is actually priced into The current value of Bitcoin because we Could see from miles away when it was Going to happen but Bulls on the crypto Side are still expecting a positive Price run we shall see who is correct For now things are muted bitcoin's price Is pretty flat in the last week to about $66,000 and then ethereum's token is off About 1.3% in the last week to about $3.2 th000 [Music] Well we're back with more IPO updates Which means for the second week in a row We're talking about public offerings and I could not be happier I love an IPO now Shares of ibata gave back ground after Its strong debut last week it does look To be pretty stable today at least According to pre-market trading so after Pricing at $88 per share above its range The company was worth $98 per share Before opening today that is great news For rubric another technology company Which is going to go public this week It's expected to price on Wednesday and Then trade on Thursday it's a big deal Renaissance Capital notes that the Company is currently looking at a $679 million IPO raise at a $6.1 billion Market cap though of course those Numbers will change and when we get the

Final pricing we'll know what they are But that gives you an idea of the scale Here so if I bought them in public last Week why do we care about rubrics IPO This week well because it is an Unprofitable software company with a Slightly complicated growth story so it Could be a pretty good comp for other Unicorns still looking to go out so the Way that I see it is this the better That rubric does this week the more IPOs We're going to have this year this one Should really matter [Music] All right let's move past IPOs and talk About Venture Capital because there are A lot of new funds that are popping up And one that really caught my eye this Morning was seraphim space so seraphim Space is a UK based Tech Investment Group and it has actually launched its Second Venture Capital fund following a First close with LPS including utat so CEO and manager Mark bogit declined to Disclose the actual percentage that it Had right Ed and what its formal Target Is but it did say that the fund should Be larger than its first fund a 2017 era 70 million pound vehicle that was about $90 million at the time so the early Stage fund is going to build a global Portfolio of 30 startups in this new Fund looking to make investments at the Seed and series a stages and it managed

To raise or is Raising more money than Its first fund because that first fund Returned three times its original Investment according to Tech runch Reporting that's the kind of return you Want to see from a VC and so it gets to Raise one more themes for the seraphim Fund are going to be use of AI in space In orbit Computing microgravity for Science among others in other words There's a lot of I don't know Greenfield Space up there in Space but not all venture capital funds Are so eyes in the sky next up we have Tcom capital now you and I both know That Venture investments in Africa have Slowed dramatically in the last couple Of years but it turns out there are a Number of new funds that are working to Change that and the most recent that I Have seen is tcom capital just put Together its fund two which weighs in at $154 million now the VC firm which has Offices in both Nairobi and logos was Actually just targeting 150 million so Even though the overrun is relatively Modest this is technically an Oversubscribed fund and its first close Going back in time just for reference Was 70 million that should give you some Idea of where seraphim could end up now Tcom is also making seed and series a Investments though it may write later States checks as it wants to but it's

Going to focus on things a bit closer to Earth so talking about fintech and Mobility agriculture healthc Care Commerce and the like it has already Backed six companies out of its new fun Fund writing checks between1 and $3 Million what's next in Tech that's not The right question it's where Puerto Rico more than just a Tropical Paradise It's an Innovations Paradise where Startups and Global players coexist in a Vast and vibrant ecosystem where Talent Runs deep highly skilled and bilingual Plus the island offers the most Competitive tax incentives in the US if You believe your business can go Anywhere Puerto Rico is the place find Out more at invest pr.org [Music] TechCrunch Rolling Along let's talk About the world of EVS where things are Looking a little bit Grim CNBC reports That shares of Tesla and Lee Auto are Falling after recent price Cuts so I had To go take a look shares of Tesla are Off around 4% in pre-market trading and Then Lee Auto is off more than 7% what Is going on well Reuters reported over The weekend that Tesla and I quote cut Prices in a number of its major markets Including China and Germany following Price Cuts in the US as it grapples with Falling sales and an intensifying price War for electric vehicles especially

Against Chinese EVS in that vein Lee Auto also cut prices so in summary Softening demand growth for EVS mixed With a lot of competitors vying for Market share has led to EV price Cuts Those in turn harm EV margins which make EV investors very sad so electric Vehicle companies are squeezed at the Moment but Tesla might be uniquely in The ringer it has seen its value drop Sharply this year falling more than 40% That said the company does have a chance To turn things around because it drops Earnings this week as we noted before so It will talk about its first quarter but Then also tell investors what it expects For the rest of the year more recently The company has also cut the price of Its self-driving assist system and Recalled thousands of cyber trucks last Week Tesla has gone through hard times Before and come out stronger on the Other end the difference this time I Will say is that as it goes through the Ringer it does have more competent Competition trying to eat its lunch that Said Tesla fans aren't going to stop Being fans so let's see what happens at Earnings [Music] Moving along this morning a silly deal Has died an early death and I am not Surprised nor am I disappointed Salesforce was considering buying

Informatica but the deal has been called Off after the companies could not get to Terms I think I know why but going back In time shares of Salesforce fell after The original reporting with its Investors worried that it would overpay For what appeared to be a very limited Growth opportunity and not that much iic Value in the data space shares of Informatica also initially fell after The reports came out of a potential deal Because investors were worried that it Would not get enough money for its Shares well now the deal is dead According to recent reporting so what is The verdict well shares of Salesforce Are up 3% in pre-market trading well Shares of Informatica are off 7% it is Hard to please investors I know but it Also seems that Sal Force's big m&a days Remain somewhat in its past recall that It got into a fight with some activist Shareholders resulting in a pullback in Deal making which made the idea of it Dropping more than 10 billion for Informatica a little bit hard to parse Especially once we dug more into the Deal and saw what Salesforce would and Wouldn't be getting ARA Salesforce Informatica we barely knew [Music] You and to bring us to a close this Morning a startup cluster to watch this Morning we have to talk about Vector

Databases I should have seen this one Coming from about 7 miles away but here We are Paul writing for Tech wrench beat Me to the punch writing that Vector Databases are all the rage judging by The number of startups entering the Space and the investors ponying up for a Piece of the pie the proliferation of Large language models and generative AI Have created fertile ground for Vector Database Technologies to flourish now if You are listening to this and you're Thinking crap I should know what those Terms mean but I don't don't worry I am Here for you the background is that Traditional relational databases like Postgress or MySQL just aren't good for Unstructured data like images and videos And anything that doesn't quite fit into A spreadsheet so what Vector databases Do is store and process data in the form Of vector embeddings those convert text And documents and such into numerical Representations that capture the meaning And relationships between the different Data points this is clutch for helping You search for things like I don't know Red shirts in a database in January Quadrant secured $28 million in funding To capitalize on its own Vector Databases growth and we've also seen Vesa and wv8 and pine cone and chroma Collectively raised more than 200 Million in the last year for their own

Vector offerings and that's just a Smattering of the name the list goes on And on since the start of the year we've Also seen index Ventures lead a $9.5 Million seed round into superlin a Platform that transforms complex data Into vector embeddings and very recently At the last YC demo day we saw Lantern a Startup that sells a hosted Vector Search engine for postgress this is a Very busy space and the big names are Taking note so do expect a fight but if I had to pick someone to win in that Competition as always May the startups [Music] Win all right that is our show for this Fine Monday morning if you need even More from the equity crew we are Equity Pod over on X and threads I am Alex over On X we have one sister show called Found digging into founder stories that I cannot recommend highly enough I will Talk to you soon we're back on Wednesday We're back on Friday Bye Equity is hosted by myself Alex Wilhelm and Tech rench senior reporter Mary an aeto we are produced by Teresa Loans solo with editing by Kell Bryce Durban is our illustrator and a big Thank you to the audience development Team and Henry pette who manages Tech Runch audio products thank you so much For listening and we'll talk to you next Time