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

This week, Natasha Mascarenhas, Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebecca Szkutak jumped on the mic to talk through a diverse news week. Shout-out to our producer, Theresa Loconsolo, for putting together a script, and TC’s Andrew Mendez for this feedback: “Y’all slayyyed  that recording and honestly can’t wait to  you all up on social media when this  episode drops.”

Yes, we’re talking about Gen Z, and yes, if you can’t already tell, we had fun on this week’s recording:

• Deals of the week included a new Trust Fund, a $29 million raise from a proptech started by the co-founders of cloud computing company DigitalOcean and a $27 million bet by some U.S.-based VCs on an African gaming startup, Carry1st.
• Then we got into the state of fintech funding in 2022. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t pretty. We compared fintech’s year to that of global startups as a whole, and Becca gave us a lesson on the difference between structured rounds and down rounds.
• We had a blast discussing a new trend of compliment-based teen social media apps, including Gas, which recently got acquired by Discord, and Slay, a German startup that just raised $2.63 million.
• And finally, we discussed Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs, which we found both unfortunate and a bit perplexing.

On that note, we appreciate you all and thank you for the refreshing flood of feedback and compliments to start off the year. It always makes our day, and we hope we can lighten up and inform yours.

Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!