Equity Monday: China boosts pressure on its tech sector as Duolingo’s IPO looks to raise a few more bucks

Published July 26, 2021

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and me here.

Ever wake up to just a massive wall of news? That was us this morning, so we had to pick and choose. But since this show is about getting you caught up, we decided to focus on the largest, broadest new information that we could:

Asian stocks were down, European shares are lower and U.S. equities are set to open underwater. Bitcoin had a great weekend, however.
China’s edtech crackdown continued over the weekend, with the country’s ruling party setting new rules for online tutoring companies; they can no longer go public and will be forced to become nonprofit entities. Chinese edtech stocks around the world fell.
China’s larger tech crackdown continued, with new moves against the present-day business models of both food delivery companies and Tencent Music. The former must ensure minimum incomes, while the latter must give up exclusive rights deals. Shares fell.
The Jam City SPAC is kaput. It will not be the last similar deal to fall apart.
And we chatted about this bit of Rivian news because it stood out to us.

All that, and we had a good time! Hugs and love from the Equity crew — chat Wednesday!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!