We had the full crew aboard today, headed by our killer production team Grace and Chris, and hosting crew Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex.

Last week we promised Cute Farming Robots, and this week we delivered, along with a lot more. But first, the Equity team along with our sister podcast Found are doing live recordings starting soon. You can find out more here, but Equity will be live-taped on Hopin next Thursday. Come hang out, it should be fun!

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/come-hang-with-us-for-live-recordings-of-techcrunch-podcasts-equity-and-found/

Now, the show rundown:

• Funding rounds from Pluto (corporate spend in the Middle East), Free Agency (agents for tech talent), and Metafy (video game coaching) got us started. From a host of rounds this week, we chose the most interesting for your delectation. If you want more on gaming, check out our Wednesday show where we niche down into the universe, or in this case, the metaverse.
• The new Seven Seven Six fund got us into the crypto investing beat, which Alex explored here earlier in the week. In short: Expect more crypto deals. We also touched on the Indian crypto tax rule, which is a revelation of a regulation.
• From there we dove into the fintech realm through the lens of the Bolt fiasco/drama/truth-telling saga. More tweets, please.
• And then, we end with a section on autonomous vehicles, that has nothing to do with cars. Yep, we're talkinig Cute Farming Robots, including rounds from Vecna, Electric Sheep, and MongoDB founder doing this, which reminds us that the AWS of robots isn't too far away.

So far, 2022 is feeling good. Along with our soon to be standing live show circuit, we're working hard on making the show more focused on tension and nuance, while still sticking to our love for numbers and nerdy networks. Let's annoy some people this year, and teach you something in the meantime.

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.