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Equity

Who knew you could get a $500 million valuation without launching a product?

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2365 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

AI agent startup /dev/agents announced a massive $56M seed round, putting the company’s valuation at a whopping $500 million. The amount is impressive given the company won’t have a first version of its product available until at least early next year. The reason behind investors’ trust, however, becomes a bit clearer when you consider the founders’ pedigree:  /dev/agents’ co-founders were both on Google’s Android team during the early days of the smartphone era. The round, as well as whether or not to include “slash” when pronouncing the company’s name, was the first of many deals discussed on today’s episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast.  Listen to the full episode to hear hosts Margaux MacColl, Devin Coldewey and Anthony Ha dig into: How Yurts plans to become the DoD’s go-to AI integration platform and compete with AI chatbot the Pentagon is developing itself. Why ServiceTitan’s IPO keeps getting weirder and if it’s a sign of IPOs to come.  The latest wave of VC turnover, including Brian Singerman’s choice to step back from Founders Fund and Sriram Krishnan’s departure from a16z, and where they’re going next. The crew was left wondering if we’ll see other investors following in Krishnan’s footsteps.  Strange AI. Who is David Mayer? And why does ChatGPT hate him so much? Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.  Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode is presented by Mercury, the fintech that simplifies how more than 200,000 businesses operate.

0:07.0

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.

0:23.7

Today is Friday, December 6th.

0:25.6

I'm Margaret McCall, and we're back after taking a break last week.

0:28.8

Kirsten's still off.

0:29.8

So today I'm here with Devin Caldeway and Anthony Ha.

0:32.7

How are you guys?

0:33.8

Anthony, how is your Thanksgiving?

0:35.5

It was great.

0:36.4

I was in Washington, D.C., with my sister and my mom.

0:39.7

No way. I'm in D.C. How come you guys didn't have Thanksgiving together?

0:44.0

I know. Why didn't you invite me? Next time. Next Thanksgiving, I'll definitely invite you, but it was

0:49.5

great. And I mean, it's great to be back in New York, but I feel like a little bit of the

0:53.4

pressure of like the end of year sprint when you realize how little you've gotten done and how quickly people are going to be going on their winter breaks.

1:00.9

Yeah, especially with VCs. I feel like I just know no VCs pick up the phone from like December onward.

1:06.9

Yeah, the year's already over for the VCs.

1:09.4

Yeah. Devin, how was yours? I'm good. I'm good. I've spent

1:13.3

the night at a haunted Victorian mansion up in Bellingham that belongs to my uncle. That sounds wonderful.

1:19.5

Devin, the next time I'm in Seattle, you'll have to bring me to this haunted mansion. I don't care if it's

1:23.1

Halloween or not. No, no. We're going 100%. Come on up. Well, cool. It's crazy that it's already December.

1:28.4

I wanted to let listeners know that we are gearing up for our year-in-review episode, and we want to know

1:31.8

how they would put 2024 in a headline. We will vote on our favorites, and the winner will be

...

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