Startups that are Ramp-ing up, and startups that are full of sh**

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Friday show, and we’re talking about the week’s biggest startup and tech news. This week, Mary Ann and Alex were joined by Kirsten Korosec, who we absolutely adore.

Here’s what we got into today:

• toptechtrends.com/2023/08/23/nvidias-q2-earnings-prove-its-the-big-winner-in-the-generative-ai-boom/”>Nvidia blew the doors off with its earnings report. We talked through some of the high-level numbers and marveled at the company’s growth. toptechtrends.com/2023/08/24/nvidia-earnings-flying-high/”>TechCrunch has more on the matter here.
• toptechtrends.com/2023/08/22/fintech-startup-ramp-raises-300m-at-a-28-lower-valuation-of-5-8b/”>Ramp raises $300M: In this market, a multi-billion-dollar valuation is a win for a fintech, even if Ramp’s new price tag is a bit lower than it was previously. So, while Ramp likely doesn’t love that it raised a down-round, it does have fresh capital and is worth $5.8 billion. That’s simply not that bad.
• toptechtrends.com/2023/08/23/lex-ai-writing-tool-seed-round/”>Lex raised $2.75M: Alex covered AI-powered writing tool’s Lex seed round. Kirsten got to give the app a try, and we all had nice things to say about the nascent startup.
• toptechtrends.com/2023/08/22/swedish-ev-battery-maker-raises-1-2b-to-expand-to-north-america/”>Northvolt is bringing its volts to North America: The global battery-building boom includes Swedish company Northvolt building a new facility in the United States. The company raised $1.2 billion from BlackRock.
• toptechtrends.com/2023/08/23/as-better-com-goes-public-ceo-vishal-garg-says-he-went-through-a-lot-of-leadership-training/”>Better.com went public: Mary Ann interviewed the company’s CEO ahead of its SPAC-led public market listing, which toptechtrends.com/2023/08/24/better-coms-stock-tanks-after-spac-combination-brings-it-to-the-public-markets/”>got panned.
• In the transit world, toptechtrends.com/2023/08/18/cruise-told-by-regulators-to-immediately-reduce-robotaxi-fleet-50-following-crash/”>Cruise got its wings clipped in San Francisco after an accident involving a fire truck. Alex is annoyed. Mary Ann is not.
• This year’s toptechtrends.com/2023/08/18/ive-never-seen-so-many-crap-startups/”>TechCrunch Battlefield 200 companies feature a lot of startups focused on excrement. We’re not kidding.