Technology
Orbit Fab opens a port worth 30 thousand. dollars to refuel satellites
Orbit Fab wants to construct “gas stations” for satellites – which suggests it needs a fuel cap, a mechanism used to transfer fuel from an orbital tanker to a customer’s spacecraft. This docking mechanism, called RAFTI, is currently approved for flight and commercially available. Price for every port? Only $30,000.
The Colorado-based startup (former TechCrunch Disrupt (*30*) finalist) has been operating since 2018, and its CEO and co-founder Daniel Faber has been working within the space industry for several a long time; he might be best known for running Deep Space Industries (DSI), a company that focused on asteroid mining. Founded in 2012, the corporate was acquired by Bradford Space seven years later.
“If you want to (talk) about something, it’s too early,” he joked during a recent interview. As a part of the corporate’s efforts to eventually construct the technology to seek for a distant asteroid, DSI built satellite thrusters for orbital maneuvering. This work and subsequent conversations with customers and colleagues ultimately led Faber to consider that the following big opportunity was space refueling.
Part of that’s simple arithmetic: Co-workers and former clients told him they may squeeze as much as $1 million in marginal revenue from satellite missions with an additional pound of fuel.
“Spacecraft are optimized for how much fuel they have, and when they run out, that extra kilogram will give them a million dollars of marginal income,” Faber said. “We are creating so much value from this that we just have to do it.”
The 2010s also saw the emergence of several satellite servicing firms, comparable to Astroscale, that develop technologies for removing space debris, extending the lifetime of satellites, or delivering satellites on the last minute. Faber calls these capabilities “tow vehicle applications” and realized there would eventually be a need for orbital gas stations to complement this fleet.
This is how Orbit Fab was born. In the primary 12 months of the corporate’s operation raised a seed round worth $6 million with the support of Bolt and Munich Re Ventures, a VC company of Munich Re Group, considered one of the most important insurers of satellites and rockets. In 2023, the corporate raised a $28.5 million Series A round.
The startup’s technology is ambitious, however the architecture is kind of easy: the thought is to equip customer satellites with a refueling port (Faber called it a “fuel cap,” but officially it’s called RAFTI) while the hardware continues to be on Earth. RAFTI, which stands for “Rapid Attachment Fluid Transfer Interface,” will also be used to refuel the spacecraft on the bottom before launch. When a RAFTI-equipped satellite runs out of fuel, considered one of Orbit Fab’s tankers will have the ability to pick up some fuel from orbital depots and deliver it directly to the shopper’s satellite for refueling.
The only two things the corporate sells are fuel and refueling ports; as you would possibly expect, the true money will come from fuel sales. On its website, Orbit Fab says the service to deliver hydrazine to geostationary orbit will cost $20 million for a mass of up to 100 kilograms.
Given the simplicity of the architecture, nailing down each bit of hardware is crucial; subsequently, it took Orbit Fab years to debut on the refueling port. There are many variables to consider: cost to the shopper versus potential marginal revenue from a further life in orbit; the impact of refueling on the shopper’s spacecraft; and the challenge of developing a docking mechanism that may also transport fuel.
In addition to all of those challenges, the corporate had to be certain that its component complied with NASA, Space Force and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics standards to ensure it was secure, reliable and resistant to the tough environments of space.
“It wasn’t cheap,” Faber said. “It wasn’t quick, but in the end we have an elegant design that meets these requirements and has the simplicity that comes from good design.”
Faber said considered one of the most important changes from the corporate’s founding to now’s the creation of the U.S. Space Force and the big impact it has had on the space industry. Ultimately, Orbit Fab focused most of its attention on meeting the emerging needs of the Space Force, which was very fascinated with orbital mobility to avoid space debris or rendezvous with other satellites.
The company anticipates that the primary RAFTI will launch customer satellites into orbit later this 12 months. That shall be followed next 12 months by the launch of the primary fuel shuttle under a contract with the Department of Defense to deliver fuel to geostationary orbit in 2025. Orbit Fab intends to sell 100 refueling ports this 12 months, which is able to enable RAFTI to have “a decent percentage of the satellites that will go into orbit,” he said Faber. He added that Orbit Fab has a further contract with an unnamed business customer to supply “a significant amount of fuel” over several years.
Beyond these milestones, Faber hinted that the corporate already had plans to modernize RAFTI and design variants that might handle higher pressure propellants. The team can be serious about redesigning the gripper housing for larger spacecraft if the market indicates that is where they need to go next.
“SpaceX made rockets reusable, Orbit Fab makes satellites reusable,” Faber said. “If you run a rocket company in today’s world and you’re not working on reusable rockets, you’re working in a dead end. The same goes for satellites: if you don’t make your satellites reusable, you’ll just put pre-planned junk into orbit.”
Technology
The company is currently developing washing machines for humans
Forget about cold baths. Washing machines for people may soon be a brand new solution.
According to at least one Japanese the oldest newspapersOsaka-based shower head maker Science has developed a cockpit-shaped device that fills with water when a bather sits on a seat in the center and measures an individual’s heart rate and other biological data using sensors to make sure the temperature is good. “It also projects images onto the inside of the transparent cover to make the person feel refreshed,” the power says.
The device, dubbed “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” (the human washing machine of the longer term), may never go on sale. Indeed, for now the company’s plans are limited to the Osaka trade fair in April, where as much as eight people will have the option to experience a 15-minute “wash and dry” every day after first booking.
Apparently a version for home use is within the works.
Technology
Zepto raises another $350 million amid retail upheaval in India
Zepto has secured $350 million in latest financing, its third round of financing in six months, because the Indian high-speed trading startup strengthens its position against competitors ahead of a planned public offering next yr.
Indian family offices, high-net-worth individuals and asset manager Motilal Oswal invested in the round, maintaining Zepto’s $5 billion valuation. Motilal co-founder Raamdeo Agrawal, family offices Mankind Pharma, RP-Sanjiv Goenka, Cello, Haldiram’s, Sekhsaria and Kalyan, in addition to stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar are amongst those backing the brand new enterprise, which is India’s largest fully national primary round.
The funding push comes as Zepto rushes so as to add Indian investors to its capitalization table, with foreign ownership now exceeding two-thirds. TechCrunch first reported on the brand new round’s deliberations last month. The Mumbai-based startup has raised over $1.35 billion since June.
Fast commerce sales – delivering groceries and other items to customers’ doors in 10 minutes – will exceed $6 billion this yr in India. Morgan Stanley predicts that this market shall be value $42 billion by 2030, accounting for 18.4% of total e-commerce and a pair of.5% of retail sales. These strong growth prospects have forced established players including Flipkart, Myntra and Nykaa to cut back delivery times as they lose touch with specialized delivery apps.
While high-speed commerce has not taken off in many of the world, the model seems to work particularly well in India, where unorganized retail stores are ever-present.
High-speed trading platforms are creating “parallel trading for consumers seeking convenience” in India, Morgan Stanley wrote in a note this month.
Zepto and its rivals – Zomato-owned Blinkit, Swiggy-owned Instamart and Tata-owned BigBasket – currently operate on lower margins than traditional retail, and Morgan Stanley expects market leaders to realize contribution margins of 7-8% and adjusted EBITDA margins to greater than 5% by 2030. (Zepto currently spends about 35 million dollars monthly).
An investor presentation reviewed by TechCrunch shows that Zepto, which handles greater than 7 million total orders every day in greater than 17 cities, is heading in the right direction to realize annual sales of $2 billion. It anticipates 150% growth over the following 12 months, CEO Aadit Palicha told investors in August. The startup plans to go public in India next yr.
However, the rapid growth of high-speed trading has had a devastating impact on the mom-and-pop stores that dot hundreds of Indian cities, towns and villages.
According to the All India Federation of Consumer Products Distributors, about 200,000 local stores closed last yr, with 90,000 in major cities where high-speed trading is more prevalent.
The federation has warned that without regulatory intervention, more local shops shall be vulnerable to closure as fast trading platforms prioritize growth over sustainable practices.
Zepto said it has created job opportunities for tons of of hundreds of gig employees. “From day one, our vision has been to play a small role in nation building, create millions of jobs and offer better services to Indian consumers,” Palicha said in an announcement.
Regulatory challenges arise. Unless an e-commerce company is a majority shareholder of an Indian company or person, current regulations prevent it from operating on a listing model. Fast trading corporations don’t currently follow these rules.
Technology
Wiz acquires Dazz for $450 million to expand cybersecurity platform
Wizardone of the talked about names within the cybersecurity world, is making a major acquisition to expand its reach of cloud security products, especially amongst developers. This is buying Dazzlespecialist in solving security problems and risk management. Sources say the deal is valued at $450 million, which incorporates money and stock.
This is a leap within the startup’s latest round of funding. In July, we reported that Dazz had raised $50 million at a post-money valuation of just below $400 million.
Remediation and posture management – two areas of focus for Dazz – are key services within the cybersecurity market that Wiz hasn’t sorted in addition to it wanted.
“Dazz is a leader in this market, with the best talent and the best customers, which fits perfectly into the company culture,” Assaf Rappaport, CEO of Wiz, said in an interview.
Remediation, which refers to helping you understand and resolve vulnerabilities, shapes how an enterprise actually handles the various vulnerability alerts it could receive from the network. Posture management is a more preventive product: it allows a company to higher understand the scale, shape and performance of its network from a perspective, allowing it to construct higher security services around it.
Dazz will proceed to operate as a separate entity while it’s integrated into the larger Wiz stack. Wiz has made a reputation for itself as a “one-stop shop,” and Rappaport said the integrated offering will proceed to be a core a part of it.
He believes this contrasts with what number of other SaaS corporations are built. In the safety industry, there are, Rappaport said, “a lot of Frankenstein mashups where companies prioritize revenue over building a single technology stack that actually works as a platform.” It could be assumed that integration is much more necessary in cybersecurity than in other areas of enterprise IT.
Wiz and Dazz already had an in depth relationship before this deal. Merat Bahat — the CEO who co-founded Dazz with Tomer Schwartz and Yuval Ofir (CTO and VP of R&D, respectively) — worked closely with Assaf Rappaport at Microsoft, which acquired his previous startup Adallom.
After Rappaport left to found Wiz together with his former Adallom co-founders, CTO Ami Luttwak, VP of Product Yinon Costica and VP of R&D Roy Reznik, Bahat was one in all the primary investors. Similarly, when Bahat founded Dazz, Assaf was a small investor in it.
The connection goes deeper than work colleagues. Bahat and Rappaport are also close friends, and she or he was the second family of Mickey, Rappaport’s beloved dog, referred to as Chief Dog Officer Wiz (together with LinkedIn profile). Once the deal was done, the 2 faced two very sad events: each Bahat and Mika’s mother died.
“We hope for a new chapter of positivity,” Bahat said. The cycle of life does indeed proceed.
Rumors of this takeover began to appear earlier this month; Rappaport confirmed that they then began talking seriously.
But that is not the one M&A conversation Wiz has gotten involved in. Earlier this 12 months, Google tried to buy Wiz itself for $23 billion to construct a major cybersecurity business. Wiz walked away from the deal, which might have been the biggest in Google’s history, partly because Rappaport believed Wiz could turn into a fair larger company by itself terms. And that is what this agreement goals to do.
This acquisition is a test for Wiz, which earlier this 12 months filled its coffers with $1 billion solely for M&A purposes (it has raised almost $2 billion in total, and we hear the subsequent round will close in just a few weeks). . Other offers included purchasing Gem security for $350 million, but Dazz is its largest acquisition ever.
More mergers and acquisitions could also be coming. “We believe next year will be an acquisition year for us,” Rappaport said.
In an interview with TC, Luttwak said that one in all Wiz’s priorities now’s to create more tools for developers that have in mind what they need to do their jobs.
Enterprises have made significant investments in cloud services to speed up operations and make their IT more agile, but this shift has include a significantly modified security profile for these organizations: network and data architectures are more complex and attack surfaces are larger, creating opportunities for malicious hackers to find ways to to hack into these systems. Artificial intelligence makes all of this far more difficult when it comes to malicious attackers. (It’s also a chance: the brand new generation of tools for our defense relies on artificial intelligence.)
Wiz’s unique selling point is its all-in-one approach. Drawing data from AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and other cloud environments, Wiz scans applications, data and network processes for security risk aspects and provides its users with a series of detailed views to understand where these threats occur, offering over a dozen products covering the areas, corresponding to code security, container environment security, and provide chain security, in addition to quite a few partner integrations for those working with other vendors (or to enable features that Wiz doesn’t offer directly).
Indeed, Wiz offered some extent of repair to help prioritize and fix problems, but as Luttwak said, the Dazz product is solely higher.
“We now have a platform that actually provides a 360-degree view of risk across infrastructure and applications,” he said. “Dazz is a leader in attack surface management, the ability to collect vulnerability signals from the application layer across the entire stack and build the most incredible context that allows you to trace the situation back to engineers to help with remediation.”
For Dazz’s part, once I interviewed Bahat in July 2024, when Dazz raised $50 million at a $350 million valuation, she extolled the virtues of constructing strong solutions and this week said the third quarter was “amazing.”
“But market dynamics are what trigger these types of transactions,” she said. She confirmed that Dazz had also received takeover offers from other corporations. “If you think about the customers and joint customers that we have with Wiz, it makes sense for them to have it on one platform.”
And a few of Dazz’s competitors are still going it alone: Cyera, like Dazz, an authority in attack surface management, just yesterday announced a rise of $300 million at a valuation of $5 billion (which confirms our information). But what’s going to he do with this money? Make acquisitions, after all.
Wiz says it currently has annual recurring revenue of $500 million (it has a goal of $1 billion ARR next 12 months) and has greater than 45% of its Fortune 100 customers. Dazz said ARR is within the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars and currently growing 500% on a customer base of roughly 100 organizations.
-
Press Release8 months ago
CEO of 360WiSE Launches Mentorship Program in Overtown Miami FL
-
Business and Finance6 months ago
The Importance of Owning Your Distribution Media Platform
-
Press Release7 months ago
U.S.-Africa Chamber of Commerce Appoints Robert Alexander of 360WiseMedia as Board Director
-
Business and Finance8 months ago
360Wise Media and McDonald’s NY Tri-State Owner Operators Celebrate Success of “Faces of Black History” Campaign with Over 2 Million Event Visits
-
Ben Crump7 months ago
Another lawsuit accuses Google of bias against Black minority employees
-
Fitness7 months ago
Black sportswear brands for your 2024 fitness journey
-
Theater8 months ago
Applications open for the 2020-2021 Soul Producing National Black Theater residency – Black Theater Matters
-
Ben Crump8 months ago
Henrietta Lacks’ family members reach an agreement after her cells undergo advanced medical tests