Leverage, red flags and a changing business landscape

Hello and welcome back to Equitya podcast about the business of startups, where we dig into the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Elegance are back to cover the biggest, boldest and worst technology news. This week we are not recording on a Tuesday because it is a regular week. Although we would like to add that Equity will be live on Thursday when we record our Friday episode. So if you want to hang out, make sure to follow the show on Twitter.

All right, what did we start this morning?

• • Stocks are generally up, major cryptos aren’t doing too much this morning, and a Coinbase downgrade we noticed.
  • Backstage Capital is firing staff because it only focuses on investments in existing portfolio companies. With less capital than before going to black founders, it’s a shame to see a fund focused on investing in underrepresented founders.

• Strapi’s launch run was fun to watch, combining open source technology and CMSs, a tool we use quite often here at londonbusinessblog.com.
• And then there is the mess at Digital World Acquisition Corp., the SPAC that wants to merge with the digital media company of former US President Trump. It has problems with regulators.
• The chaos didn’t start there, however. 3AC is in default †like Russia!), the BlockFi rescue deal had internal pushback† Klarna may only be worth $10 billion† MilkRun loses a lot of moneyand were learn more about how the Indian government is going after Twitter†

A great way to start the week. We child. Chat quickly!