Creator economy’s slow burn

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s rigamarole of news. Alex took some well-deserved time off, but that meant we got to poke a little fun at him and create a Special Edition segment to start off the show. Jokes aside, this week was yet another spree of creator economy, edtech, and new fund announcements, with fresh and unexpected news hailing from Natasha's home state, New Jersey. Here's what we got into: Box got a lifeline in the form of a $500 million check from KKR, and as Danny mentions, Box CEO Aaron Levie shifts his role a bit, too. Patreon, an early startup in the creator economy space, has tripled its valuation to $4 billion. Another, not-so-old startup with the same reported valuation? Clubhouse. We threaded the line between the two, and gave some color on a new monetization feature rolled out. As an aside, looks like Clubhouse is everyone's favorite app to tweet about so much so that even Twitter is reportedly considering an acquisition. MasterClass raising new funding at $2.5 billion valuation. That is up from a $800 million valuation just last year, and shows that aspirational teaching packaged as celebrity-taught Youtube-like videos with Netflix-like quality is enough to be considered edtech. Speaking of edtech, a series of exits have caught our attention. The consolidation has begun! We spoke about two new funds. First, New Jersey is proposing a $10 million fund that would go to Black and LatinX founders. Second, Index raised nine-figures for seed startups, beating Sequoia's seed fund by a measly $5 million. The show closed with two early-stage funding rounds you don't want to miss - Walnut and Real - as well as a conversation on the future of telehealth. What a show! We'll be back with the full trio next week, and until then, stay safe and thank you for listening. 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.