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NASA has finalized an agreement with SpaceX to purchase five more astronaut transportation missions to and from the International Space Station, further entrenching the space company’s position as the prime services vendor for the space agency. The new contract — for the Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13 and Crew-14 missions — is valued at $1.4 billion. It brings the total contract value for all 14 transportation missions, part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, to $4.9 billion. The funds include use of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to transport up to four astronauts, the Falcon 9 rocket for launch and all other return and recovery operations. NASA announced its intention to order the additional missions in June. The CCtCap program is under the aegis of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, a series of public-private partnerships designed to develop domestic launch capabilities. NASA issued the original $2.6 billion contract to SpaceX in 2014. The spac...

Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week’s guest Shiv Rao founded Abridge after experiencing how unnerving it can be to go through a medical emergency with a loved one — even for a practicing doctor like himself. So he and the Abridge team created an app that doesn’t just transcribe a conversation between doctor and patient but can summarize the important parts, pull out the next steps and even define any medical terms that were said so the patient walks away with all the information they need. The same technology helps doctors take better notes and alleviate the “pajama time” burnout by recording what happened in the appointment and synthesizing it in a format that is useful to a doctor. Darrell, Jordan and Shiv talk about the importance of making an impact at scale in the medical field. Subscribe to Found  to hear more stories from founders each week. Connect with us: On  Twitter On  Instagram Via email: found@techcrunch.co...

When it comes to types of venture capital instruments, party rounds are as controversial as they come. A party round is an early-stage financing round, usually occurring between the pre-seed and Series A stages, that includes a laundry list – or “party” – of individual investors. It’s different from a more traditional round, which may look like it’s led by one or two institutional investors with a few participating investors also taking part. The investment vehicle has been around for over a decade and has been a subject of debate for just as long. The positives are obvious: With more investors on their cap table, startups have more avenues for distribution, introductions and advice throughout their lifecycle. The cons are more complicated. Is the party-round investment as helpful as capital from fewer, more commitment sources? Are there too many cooks in the kitchen? Is it a negative signal that this startup had to raise from dozens of people instead of one high-conviction partner? ...

Jenny Lefcourt Contributor Share on Twitter Jenny is an entrepreneur, operator, board member, advisor, and investor in tech for over 25 years. Editor’s note: Jenny Lefcourt is a TechCrunch Live guest on August 31, 2022 where, along with Guillaume de Zwirek, CEO and co-founder of WELL Health, she’s scheduled to speak on the specific steps founders should follow when raising a Series A. The event records live and is available to watch at 12:00pm PDT. It’s free to attend. Register here. Replays will be available and posted here following the event. Beginning with the first company I co-founded 25 years ago and continuing through the second company I co-founded 15 years ago, I raised over $100M from top-tier VCs. During that time, less capital was floating around, and those numbers were considered enormous. The bad news is that I over-capitalized my companies, but the good news is that the process taught me how VCs think and the best way to pitch them. Since 2014, I’ve b...

Don’t you hate it when they give everything away in the headline? So, a belated spoiler warning that, indeed, the iPhone 14 is almost certainly going to be the big headline announcement at Apple’s September event. A few other things seem close to certain, as well, including the Apple Watch Series 8. As ever, there may be one or two wildcards at the event. It will be interesting to see precisely how much Apple ends up announcing next week. The company was more than happy to spread announcements across events, in the two+ years when everything suddenly went online. The simple truth is it’s a lot easier to ask people to drop everything to cover your event when it involves sitting in front of a computer instead of flying across the U.S. This one, on the other hand, is most likely going to be worth the flight (I mean, I hope — no refunds on the tickets). Go for launch. Tune in for a special #AppleEvent on September 7 at 10 a.m. PT.  Tap the and we’ll send you a reminder on event ...

Clearco , a Toronto-based fintech capital provider for online companies, is walking back the international expansion it once touted as the future of the company . One month after cutting 25% of its total staff , Clearco is conducting another round of layoffs as it retracts its international presence in the U.K., Germany, Ireland and Australia. CEO and co-founder Michele Romanow tells TechCrunch over e-mail that Clearco had to let go of approximately 60 more employees on the international teams. The latest workforce reduction is just one step Clearco has taken over the past few months, including prior rounds of layoffs, to refocus its business operations amid the changing e-commerce scene. Similar to other employees laid off by the company, those impacted will receive severance pay, a two-year window to exercise equity and job support. As Clearco’s international workforce is cut, its global clients will now turn to Outfund, an e-commerce investor that operates in the U.K. and Austral...

Women-led mobile gaming startup Robin Games raised funding around the idea of carving out a new niche in the market of “lifestyle gaming.” The idea, the company explained at the time of its 2020 public debut , was to create a fantasy gaming experience that’s more sophisticated and stylish — something more in line with the sort of content you’d typically find in a lifestyle magazine or Instagram influencer’s profile. Today, the startup is releasing its first title to tackle this concept with the launch of a mobile game, PLAYHOUSE, which combines both gameplay and shopping in one experience. Available on iOS and Android, PLAYHOUSE is a DIY design game that allows players to drag-and-drop furniture and décor into spaces to create original looks for rooms using elements like wall art, sofas, chairs, tables, plants and more. This alone doesn’t make the app unique — the interior design genre is a popular subgenre within the Simulation Games category on today’s app stores where competitors ...

Box reported fiscal Q2 2023 revenue of $246 million last week , up 15% from its year-ago result. While that pace was down slightly from the 18% growth Box posted in its prior quarter, the rate of expansion appears to be what the company fancies in terms of growth moving forward. That $246 million figure puts the company on a run rate of nearly $1 billion, a magic milestone for any SaaS company. What’s more, the company’s guidance for the current quarter of between $250 million and $252 million puts it over the top in terms of reaching a 10-figure run rate. By now, it’s well-known that Box has not had an easy time in the public markets. To get to today, it had to survive the slings and arrows of an activist investor , to pick an example, something that it has now come out the other side of. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/6hfLeWz

Amazon is lagging its chief rival Flipkart in India on several key metrics and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein. The American e-commerce giant’s 2021 gross merchandise value in the country, where it has deployed over $6.5 billion, stood between $18 billion to $20 billion, lagging Flipkart’s $23 billion, the analysts said in a report to clients Tuesday that was obtained by TechCrunch. The company’s recent spendings for growth in India has also made profitability “elusive,” the report added. India is a key overseas market for Amazon, where it competes with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, Walmart-owned Flipkart and social commerce startups SoftBank-backed Meesho and Tiger Global-backed DealShare. Amazon has so far offered “a weaker proposition in ‘new’ commerce” in the country, the report added. At stake is one of the world’s last great growth markets. The e-commerce spending in India is expect...

It’s an exciting day for Studio Ghibli fans — fans in the United States and Canada, that is. The majority of Studio Ghibli’s film catalog has just been released to major digital rental platforms, such as Apple TV , Amazon , Google Play , Microsoft  and Vudu, a report by Variety confirms. For the first time, Studio Ghibli’s films can finally be rented digitally in North America. Critically acclaimed titles like “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and the award-winning “Spirited Away” will be available to rent for as low as $3.99. However, although Google Play lists the titles at a $5.99 price point, it has a sale where the titles are available to rent for just $3.99 at present. All films will be available in HD, and customers can rent original Japanese-language or English-dubbed versions. Other titles now available to rent are “Castle in the Sky,” “Ponyo,” “When Marnie Was There,” “Princess Mononoke,” “The Cat Returns,” “The Tale of The...

Kate Anthony started in the Lone Star State. It was there, in 2019, that she launched her app Euphoria , seeking to provide information and resources on gender-affirming care. She knew the stakes were going to be high, and as the state passed anti-trans legislation, she and her company were forced to flee. Settling in Denver, Anthony made a plan on what to do next. She decided to maintain business as usual while the fight for trans rights continues. She’s not alone in that decision. Many apps, if not all, that service the trans community are hyperexposed, under fire and seemingly undeterred. TechCrunch conducted a vibe check to see how trans entrepreneurs servicing their communities are navigating this moment. The Human Rights Campaign told TechCrunch that legislators in state houses have introduced 344 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session, with more than 140 specifically targeting the trans community. “We will not allow these anti-trans people to bully us into giving information.” Ayd...

Fresh regulations are often met with skepticism from startup founders, but digital lenders in Kenya largely seem to be upbeat about the new Digital Credit Providers law, saying it will bring order to the sector. The chairman of the Digital Lenders Association of Kenya, Kevin Mutiso , sounded optimistic about the impending new regulatory environment, saying that it had already fostered investor confidence and will bolster growth in the sector. “The regulations have encouraged investors to come into our market, and I’m already aware of five new big players that have come in because of the new regulatory field. We are looking forward to being regulated and having a fair playing field,” Mutiso told TechCrunch. Mutiso added that the association’s 16 members — including the market-dominant Tala and Zenka — are awaiting the required licenses to be fully compliant. The regulations, set to come into effect on September 18, give Kenya’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Kenya, the requisite aut...

Al Yankovic, the 62-year-old parody artist known as Weird Al, is getting his own equally weird biopic this fall. The trailer for “WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” gives a first look at the movie, exploring the wacky world of Weird Al, his hilarious cover songs and his Polka obsession. “WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” premieres on The Roku Channel on November 4. The film will arguably be Roku’s biggest-ever original film, with well-known stars like Daniel Radcliffe playing Weird Al, Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey. “WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” will be an ambitious move for the streamer. The Roku Channel has been eager to expand its original programming slate, and the upcoming Al Yankovic biopic will likely be a hit for the free streaming service. Weird Al is a highly successful musician, having sold over 12 million albums and won five Grammy Awards. When looking at Roku’s growth, the streaming service needs to pick up the p...

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle developer under Alphabet, is opening up its driverless robotaxi service in downtown Phoenix to vetted local residents. People who have been accepted to Waymo’s “trusted tester” program are eligible to hail a driverless ride — meaning no human safety operator is behind the wheel — in a Jaguar I-Pace EV in downtown Phoenix. Waymo has branded these as “rider only” trips to denote that a human safety operator is not in the vehicle. Trusted testers sign non-disclosure agreements and cannot share their experiences on social media or with journalists. In May, Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said on stage at TC Sessions: Mobility that the company had started allowing employees to hail a driverless ride — sans human operator — in the downtown Phoenix area. Opening it up to trusted testers is the next step before a wider public release. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego posted a message (along with a video) on Twitter and Instagram marking the occasion. I had the opportu...

Following a preview in April, Microsoft this morning announced the general availability of virtual machines (VMs) on Azure featuring the Ampere Altra, a processor based on the Arm architecture. The first Azure VMs powered by Arm chips, Microsoft says that they’re accessible in 10 Azure regions today and can be included in Kubernetes clusters managed using Azure Kubernetes Service beginning on September 1. The Azure Arm-based VMs have up to 64 virtual CPU cores, 8 GB of memory per core and 40 Gbps of networking bandwidth as well as SSD local and attachable storage. Microsoft describes them as “engineered to efficiently run scale-out, cloud-native workloads,” including open source databases, Java and .NET applications and gaming, web, app and media servers. Preview releases of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise and Linux OS distributions including Canonical Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Debian are available on the VMs day one, with support for Alma Li...

Millions around the world suffer strokes every year, and millions more are in recovery from one they’ve suffered. Regaining the use of affected limbs and capabilities is a long road, but one that can be shortened by intensive rehabilitation efforts — which Neurofenix has shown can take place in the home rather than during frequent trips to the hospital. Its Neuroball device and home therapy platform have led to $7 million in new funding to expand and deepen its platform. The problem with existing stroke rehabilitation techniques is not that they aren’t effective, but that they’re mostly located in hospitals and thus limit how often they can be engaged with. “For many, many years rehabilitation, especially neural rehabilitation, has been focused on big bulky equipment in facilities,” explained Guillem Singla, CEO and co-founder (with CTO Dimitrios Athanasiou) of Neurofenix. “We’ve extracted the essence of what needs to be done in neural rehabilitation: It has to be intensive, engagin...

More than half of all Bitcoin daily trading volumes are reportedly fake, as the world's largest cryptocurrency nosedives again amid global economic turmoil. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/WJvb3FG

Netflix’s upcoming ad-supported plan could cost anywhere from $7 to $9 per month according to a Bloomberg report published over the weekend. For comparison, the streaming service offers a basic single-screen plan in the U.S. for $9.99 per month, while its most popular plan, which offers full HD streaming on two screens, costs $15.99 per month. The Bloomberg report noted that Netflix plans to show roughly four minutes of commercials for an hour of programming, which is on par or less than its competitors . It also said that the company might show ads before and during a show, but won’t show anything after an episode ends. In April, the streaming giant said it plans to offer its ad-supported plan next year. But since then multiple reports have remarked that the firm might launch this plan by the end of the year. The new report says Netflix might launch its ad-fueled tier in at least half a dozen markets in the last quarter of the calendar year. During its recent earnings call, Netf...

Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has launched 54 more of its Starlink broadband satellites in orbit and landed a rocket on a ship at sea on Saturday night. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/QerWl2z

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Currently, those part of the pilot project can order for a minimum order value of Rs 150 via Blinkit on Zomato's main app, while on Zomato, it remains Rs 49. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/I08jaY7

Covering Five Flute’s fundraising and tearing down the deck the company used to raise its $1.2 million seed round  had me wondering: How the hell do investors decide whether to invest in a company at the earliest stages? VC firm Baukunst led the Five Flute investment, and I sat down with  Axel Bichara and Tyler Mincey to learn how they evaluate a potential early-stage deal. They told me that the vast majority of the deals they look at fall apart at the due diligence stage and helped me get a deeper understanding of what that process looks like from the inside. “Common wisdom tends to generate mediocrity. That’s not helpful. In VC, we are looking for the outliers.” Axel Bichara, co-founder and general partner, Baukunst “The decision to take a second meeting is one of the biggest decisions in venture capital because, from that [moment] onward, you are committing significant time,” Bichara said, explaining that, in his experience, they only invest in one out of every 25...

The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this month , puts the U.S. on the path toward realizing its carbon reduction goals, in part by spurring its EV market. It has also plunged that same market into short-term chaos by requiring entire supply chains to be restructured in just a few years. The catalyst is the IRA’s steep requirements around where automakers can shop for critical battery materials if they want to be eligible for the $7,500 Clean Vehicle tax credit. China, the world’s largest producer of such supplies, is not on the list. As a result, many in the industry are swiveling their heads toward battery recycling companies that promise to supply automakers with at least some of the materials they’ll need in the coming years to produce the wave of EVs coming to market. This space has already seen substantial recent VC investment , particularly as millions of tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by 2030. The new legislation h...

Aston Martin is using its upcoming Valhalla high-performance plug-in hybrid to develop a playbook for its future EVs. Executives said that the 937-horsepower Valhalla supercar exhibited at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on Sunday showcases lessons in driver engagement, visual effects and sound that could surface in its first EV in 2025 . “If we get that performance hybrid recipe right, it’s something we could see elsewhere later on in the range,” said Alex Long, head of Product & Market Strategy for Aston Martin Lagonda. The Valhalla’s engineers were especially concerned with retaining the brand’s racetrack-ready driving dynamics when developing the mid-engine two seater, he said. Electric vehicles can feel less engaging as the driver cedes control to the electrical systems and advanced driver assistance functions that govern them. “EVs are more like daily drivers and less of a weekend thrill,” Long said. Engineers strived to put the driver back in control of the Valhal...