Why Front’s Series C matters, the latest on Lambda and The Athletic makes media look good

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

This week Danny and Alex are back with more than ever to get through. 2020 has come out of the gate fast when it comes to news, so much so that we had to leave out of the show way more than we wanted. Things like the newest members of the $100 million ARR club, One Medical’s proposed IPO pricing, the Clubhouse funding round and Placer.ai’s latest investment.

But we did manage to chat through a host of news, including:

• Why Front’s latest investment (a $59 million Series C) is a pretty big deal. Not because of how much money it has raised — the firm has raised more in a single, preceding round — but because of who put the capital to work.
• On the venture capital front, Danny and Alex also chewed over signaling risk in venture, and why bigger funds are writing earlier and earlier checks.
• Also on the docket was the latest from Lambda School, which our former co-host and friend Kate Clark wrote. The gist is that regardless of how you feel about the company, your views are probably a bit too negative, or a bit too positive. (More on the company’s ilk from Extra Crunch here, and here.)
• And three media deals, including The Athletic’s latest investment ($50 million), who might buy the company behind the hit podcast “Serial” and why Spotify might buy The Ringer. Which is about sports, it turns out.

All that and we had fun. One more thing: Don’t fret, we’re going to bring guests back in just a few weeks. So if you’ve missed hearing from Folks Who Actively Invest, fear not, the VCs will be back.