To close out the year, Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex headed to the mic with Grace and Chris behind the scenes. We got to our favorite topics, and honestly, got a chance to just laugh our way through the final innings of the year.

Here's what we got to:

• Factor raised a Seed round for up-chain logistics work, Phylagen is working to track airborne illness, and Notus wants to help you find the right influencer to buy.
• We also dove into the How Big Can Y Combinator Really Get discussion that Haje kicked off. We don't all agree on this one, so talk it through with us.
• Then we chatted about Course Hero, edtech, and when it can -- and may not! -- make sense to raise venture capital.
• To close we dove into Alex's SPAC story about the metaverse, touched on the Reddit IPO, and made fun of whatever garbage this is.

And that's our last news round up of the year. Stay tuned for our 2021 look back episode that comes out on Friday, December 24 and our 2022 predictions-meets-manifestations episode that comes out on Friday, December 31st. You can check out our Twitter account for when they go live.Happy Holidays from the Equity family to you and yours. May your days be merry, even if they're in the metaverse.

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.