Equity

Over the past few years, a new category of mobile apps has quietly exploded into a multi-billion dollar business. They're called “micro dramas” — short-form, mobile-first scripted shows designed to be watched vertically on your phone. Think soap opera meets TikTok, complete with secret billionaire romances, disapproving werewolf mothers-in-law, and cliffhangers engineered to keep users tapping. The leading app, ReelShort, made $1.2 billion in consumer spending last year alone.  

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan and TechCrunch senior reporter Amanda Silberling sit down with Henry Soong, founder of Watch Club, who thinks the micro drama industry is still "in its MySpace era." He has a vision for what the Facebook moment could look like.  Listen to the full episode to hear: 


Why micro dramas took off in China while Quibi burned through $2 billion and failed in the U.S., and what that gap reveals about content, product, and business model. 


How Watch Club is targeting a completely different audience than ReelShort and Drama Box. 


The tension between building an intentional social experience and optimizing for engagement the way TikTok does. 


Whether AI is coming for the werewolf billionaire romance script. Amanda has thoughts.  

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

01:11 Why micro dramas, and why now? 

04:25 What makes Watch Club different 

07:29 The monetization model problem 

18:52 Optimizing for intentionality, not engagement 

24:23 Why Quibby failed (content, product & business model) 

28:22 Defensibility: tech company or studio? 

31:36 AI, the WGA, and the future of storytelling 

33:44 Outro 
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Jensen Huang took the stage at Nvidia's GTC conference this week in his signature leather jacket to deliver a two-and-a-half-hour keynote, projecting $1 trillion in AI chip sales through 2027, declaring that every company needs an “OpenClaw strategy,” and closing with a rambling Olaf robot that had to get its mic cut. The message was hard to miss: Nvidia wants to be foundational to everything, from AI training to autonomous vehicles to Disney parks. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, and Sean O'Kane break down what Nvidia's growing web of AI infrastructure partnerships actually means for startups, and more of the week's headlines. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Travis Kalanick’s return building a "wheelbase for robots" with his new startup Atoms, and the crew has questions about Kalanick’s acquisitions along the way 


Rivian’s partnership with Uber to build robotaxi versions of its R2 in a deal worth up to $1.25 billion, while pushing back its EBITDA target to do it 


Frore landing a $1.64 billion valuation for its AI chip cooling systems 


xAI rebooting, again, with only two of its original eleven co-founders still standing 


Garry Tan's Claude Code setup went viral at SXSW (Spoiler: the crew is not impressed). 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

00:20 Garry Tan's Claude Code setup goes viral at SXSW 

03:37 Travis Kalanick is back with a new startup 

12:51 Uber and Rivian's $1.25B RoboTaxi deal 

20:54 Chip cooling startup Frore becomes a unicorn 

22:56 Nvidia GTC recap: $1 trillion in sales projections 

31:42 Elon Musk is rebooting xAI...again 

36:37 Outro 
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Artificial intelligence models are multiplying fast, and competition is stiff. With so many players crowding the space, which one will be the best — and who decides that? Arena, formerly LM Arena, has emerged as the de facto public leaderboard for frontier LLMs, influencing funding, launches, and PR cycles. In just seven months, the startup went from a UC Berkeley PhD research project to being valued at $1.7 billion. 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan catches up with Arena co-founders Anastasios Angelopoulos and Wei-Lin Chiang to determine how a team like theirs can build a neutral benchmark when the companies they’re ranking are also their backers. 

Listen to the full episode to hear: 


How Arena actually works, and why its founders say you can't game it the way you mighta static benchmark. 


What "structural neutrality" actually means, and whether taking money from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic is a conflict of interest. 


How Arena is moving beyond chat to benchmark agents, coding, and real-world tasks with a new enterprise product. 


Why Claude is currently winning the expert leaderboard for legal and medical use cases. 


Arena's bet on what comes after LLMs, and why agents are next on the leaderboard. 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

03:00 How Arena's leaderboard works, and why it's different from static benchmarks 

07:00 Reproducibility concerns and how to scale 

08:45 Can Arena stay independent while taking money from the labs it ranks? 

11:15 Diversity, fraud prevention, and abuse mitigation 

18:15 Arena's "data moat" 

19:20 Agent benchmarking and expert leaderboards 

21:40 Open sourcing data 

22:45 How do Arena's rankings shape AI development? 

24:15 Outro 
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According to Index Ventures Partner Shardul Shah, cybersecurity startup Wiz sits “at the center of three tailwinds: AI, cloud, and security spend.” Those tailwinds powered what just became the largest venture-backed acquisition in history — Google's $32 billion deal, finalized after a declined 2024 offer, antitrust review on both sides of the Atlantic, and an extra $9 billion to sweeten the pot. 

 

On this episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Anthony Ha, Rebecca Bellan, and Sean O'Kane sit down with Shah to dig into what made Wiz worth that price tag, and also cover more of the week's headlines. 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Why a DOGE employee allegedly walked out of the Social Security Administration with a thumb drive full of personal data, and the questions it raises about access to sensitive systems 


Taya and Sandbar, the latest startups betting voice is the next big AI interface — but do normal consumers agree? 


Palmer Luckey raising for a retro gaming startup at a $1 billion valuation 


Meta’s acquisition of Moltbook, the viral AI agent social network 


The latest in the Anthropic vs. DoD saga, including tech workers at OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft signing their names on a legal brief in support of Anthropic 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 

 

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

00:16 Did a DOGE employee steal your SSN? 

02:53 AI note-taking wearables are back: Taya & Sandbar 

09:18 Palmer Lucky's retro gaming startup ModRetro 

13:39 Meta acquires AI agent social network Moltbot 

18:54 Inside Google's $32B Wiz acquisition with Shardul Shah 

28:41 Anthropic's lawsuit against the DoD 

38:40 Outro 
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For years, venture capitalists have been skeptical of beverage startups, citing thin margins and brutal distribution as reasons most brands never break out. But a new wave of “functional soda” companies has been challenging that assumption, including Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that grew from a kitchen experiment into a $1.95 billion acquisition by PepsiCo. 

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan is joined by Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth to talk about building a beverage startup in a venture world dominated by SaaS and AI. From pitching on Shark Tank while nine months pregnant to scaling a digital-first brand during COVID, and now returning as a Shark herself, Ellsworth shares how social media, fast marketing bets, and customer feedback helped turn a niche drink into a category-defining company. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 


Ellsworth’s Shark Tank return, and how she evaluates founders on the other side of the pitch. 


How Ellsworth turned a personal health issue into Poppi and built early traction at farmers' markets. 


Why TikTok and community-driven marketing helped the brand rack up billions of views and loyal fans. 


The risky decision to buy a last-minute Super Bowl ad, and how the team executed it in days. 


What it’s like selling a startup to PepsiCo while trying to preserve the brand’s identity. 


Why beverage startups almost inevitably need acquisition-level distribution to scale. 

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. 
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