Monday, Mar 14, 2022 • 7min

The inevitable codification of Silicon Valley's relationships

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This week, Natasha is running the show, which means we're returning to our private market focus and, for the fun of it, reminding you all that Pete Davidson is getting high soon.

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Natasha Mascarenhas

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Natasha Mascarenhas

00:24

Hello and welcome back to Equity. The

Techcrunch

podcast where we unpack the numbers and nuanced behind the headlines. It is Monday March 14th 2022 and I am Natasha Mascarenhas. As you can tell, I'm here instead of Alex this week so take that as a permission/red flag, green flag, that we're gonna be changing things up. I did start the week by realizing that

Pete Davidson

is going to

space

at the end of the month. So enjoy that factoid as we head into this week's news.

00:52

Now, I'm not a

markets

person, but I do want to give a quick update on what I'm seeing and that is definitely mixed feelings all around the world when it comes to the

Stock Market

. This is thanks to

inflation

the Ukraine War

Covid,

supply chain

delays and I mean all around high tensions.

01:08

So stocks did climb in

Europe

, but at the same time they fell sharply in

Hong Kong.

America

we saw slight upticks, but the

NASDAQ

did stay flat and then somewhat in reflection of everything I just said, most major

cryptos

are down.

01:23

Instead of the big tech section this week. I do want to talk about a big question or trend that I'm noticing coming back in the private markets. So when I was first reporting on tech I noticed that investors sometimes invested in other investors. And it was kind of a way to get exposure to ambitious, speedy, smaller funds and access to hot deals before maybe

Sequoia

notices. We saw it with scout funds, sure. But we also saw it with

Andreessen Horowitz

doing it and

Lightspeed

and

Sequoia

also kind of seeding a new generation of hopeful fund managers.

01:53

While the idea of it is not new, I did notice that it's been gaining a lot of steam. So I published a piece this morning that was looking at some recent money being put forward by

Tiger Global Management

and Seven Seven Six. To me, the fact that these bigger firms are starting to put money into early stage tech funds shows that they're still interested, sure, in experimental investors to de-risk and lead those first checks

02:15

And that, you know, there's blooming interest in the idea of codifying once informal relationships. In the past you may have just asked a friend for an intro on a deal. Now, in a world where anyone can start rolling fund and emerging fund managers have a literal title that they can pitch people behind, firms should put money where their collaboration is.

02:34

On our Wednesday show this week, we actually will get into why we think

Tiger Global

is so dedicated to backing early stage fund managers and we think it may have to do with a little bit of a mid-fund crisis.

02:50

Finally, I will end your day with two deals. First, we're gonna talk about Moove, which is an

African

mobility

Fintech

that provides vehicle financing to drivers. It raised $105 million in a new series A2 financing and, catch this, they have an exclusive partnership with Uber. Here's how it works. Drivers sign up on the platform, once verified, they're trained, signed contracts and moved to access loans to buy or rent cars. The company will then get these drivers onto Uber's platform and then deduct the weekly rental fees from their earnings.

03:23

So I really like companies that help others get closer to the ownership of major assets. I feel like that is the promise of

Fintech

, especially

Fintech

, that's both trying to be inclusive and disruptive for those of us who caught us in our live show last week.

03:36

But I guess my big question is I'd like to see them not just help the folks who already speak the language of car ownership, but also just made me realize that there is power in owning a car. As Tage points out in his piece about Moove, owning a car is still a luxury for most of the population.

03:54

So while Moove is obviously providing a long term fix, there's probably a whole ecosystem that has also helped people avoid getting cars in the first place.

04:01

So beyond gig drivers or mobility entrepreneurs, I would like to see how Moove apply this model of helping people get small ownership of big assets over time to other, maybe more immediate focuses. I also of course wonder if it's Uber acquisition fodder, you know, the company, like I said, has an inclusive partner across

Africa.

04:19

And going back to the idea of it trying to being both inclusive and disruptive, I could totally see a world where it's helping the workers on its platform, the people that are looking to buy cars, with benefits. It's going to be a gig economy company. I would like to see it get into the world of portable benefits which written about time and time again.

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Natasha Mascarenhas