Virgin Orbit performed a demonstration of its full launch system on Monday, and while it didn’t go quite as planned, with the mission cut short just a few seconds after Virgin’s LauncherOne separated from its Cosmic Girl carrier aircraft, the company says it still learned a lot – and a lot went right, too. Spaceflight…
Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) futures rocket higher for a second day of strong gains. The rally is no longer led by mega tech companies, but by cyclicals, aerospace, travel, and small-caps. It’s a broader, more healthy rally which implies a stronger recovery. The U.S. stock market is preparing for another explosive open on Wednesday.…
The gold price hit a two-week low of $1,705, as the global economy slowly becomes more optimistic. Gold is unlikely to hit new highs if equities and real yields continue gains but may resurge if the economic recovery falters. Gold will likely remain strong in the medium to longer-term, since the economic recovery will be…
SpaceX is set to mark a huge milestone in its own company history, with a first-ever crewed spaceflight set to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida later today. The mission is Commercial Crew Demo-2, the culmination of its Crew Dragon human spacecraft development program, which will carry NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken…
JD.com, the online retailer that is Alibaba’s long-time nemesis, announced Wednesday a strategic partnership with Kuaishou, the main rival of TikTok’s sibling in China, Douyin. The collaboration is part of a rising trend in the Chinese internet where short video apps and e-commerce platforms increasingly turn to each other for monetization synergies. The thinking goes…
Amazon could use the pandemic as an expansion opportunity. The firm’s distribution network has a huge opportunity to grow. JC Penney could be a takeover target for Amazon, or the firm could be considering buying new cargo planes. When Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) released its first-quarter results, Jeff Bezos warned that investors were in for a bumpy…
When AbCellera won a $30 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop therapeutic countermeasures against viral outbreaks two years ago, it’s safe to assume that no one thought the technology would be so vitally important so soon. The work AbCellera was doing was part of a high-priority initiative from DARPA’s Biological…
Wall Street billionaires have little intention of re-entering the stock market despite its strong rally. Carl Icahn’s failed $1.5 billion bet on Hertz shows why billionaires are cautious. Big cash-buffer at a time like this is necessary to rescue struggling businesses. Carl Icahn is the latest billionaire to be on the wrong side of the…
ByteDance’s TikTok app, which has gained hundreds of millions of users in India with its short-form videos, is facing criticism in its biggest overseas market after disturbing videos surfaced on the platform. Phrases such as BanTikTok, DeleteTikTok, and BlockTikTok have trended on Twitter in India in the past three weeks after numerous users expressed disgust…
Aircall has raised a $65 million Series C round (€60.2 million) with DTCP leading the round, Adam Street participating and existing investors eFounders, Draper Esprit, Balderton and NextWorld injecting more money in the company. Overall, Aircall has raised $106 million. Aircall is building a software-as-a-service company around phone calls. You could use it to operate…
Ola Electric, the EV business that spun out of the ride-hailing giant Ola last year, has acquired an Amsterdam-based electric scooter startup as the Indian firm looks to locally produce and launch its own line of two wheelers as soon as this year. The Indian firm said Wednesday it had acquired Etergo, a Dutch firm…
YouTube Kids, the video platform’s version of its service that lets families set age categories, viewing timers and other controls, is now available on Apple TV. Country availability is listed here, with more to be added later. YouTube says that safety controls still need to be set through the mobile version of the app. YouTube…
Walmart is continuing its foray into fashion e-commerce, announcing a strategic partnership with fashion resale marketplace thredUP to list a large number of the items on Walmart’s digital storefront. With this partnership over 750,000 items from thredUP will be available on walmart.com/thredup, starting today. Notably, only clothing items and shoes marked as “new” or “like…
Delman, a Jakarta-based data management startup, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding. The round was led by Intudo Ventures, with participation from Prasetia Dwidharma Ventures and Qlue Performa Indonesia, and will be used to establish a research and development center and hire software engineers and data scientists. Delman was founded in 2018 by chief…
Commonwealth Fusion Systems closed on its latest $84 million in new funding two weeks ago. The U.S. was still very much in the lockdown phase and getting a deal done, especially a multi-million dollar investment in a new technology aiming to make commercial nuclear fusion a reality after decades of hype, was “an interesting thing”…
Singapore-based fintech startup GoBear has raised $17 million from returning investors Walvis Participaties, a Dutch venture capital firm, and Aegon N.V., a life insurance and asset management provider. The funding brings GoBear’s total funding so far to $97 million, and will be used to expand its consumer financial services platform, which is available in seven…