Happily this week, we did not talk about NFTs, and I don’t think that we even said “token” a single time.

Instead, Mary Ann and Natasha and Alex got back to what we might consider the roots of Equity. Here’s what we got into: 

• We started with a look at the recent Fertilis round. Fertilis is an Australian startup working to make the IVF process more reliable. We are big fans of the concept, though the startup has lots of work ahead of it before it moves the needle for couples hoping to conceive. 
•  Mary Ann brought together two very Equity topics: Fintech and SaaS, but more interestingly, fintech that only wants to serve SaaS startups. Even though we tried to define Arc’s relationship with the startups it serves, Alex landed on it being a friends with benefits for the financial world. 
• Speaking of fintech, Brex made headlines (again) with its new raise and new executive – thanks to Meta.
• We keep returning to the hiring conversation, and that’s for good reason. Career Karma (news here) and SeekOut (news here) have two different strategies when it comes to empowering employees at companies -- and all of us agreed that retention, versus placement, is the future of hiring tech. 
• We ended with a conversation on accelerators thanks to Y Combinator’s news, and venture reaction thereof. Plus, new AngelList and Dorm Room Fund remind us that staying niche in strategy continues to be the way that early-stage venture operations are winning deals. 

A big hug to you all for surviving the start to the working year during a COVID surge. We can do this! We’ll get through it as a big team, ok? 

Credits: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm and Mary Ann Azevedo. We are 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.