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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
A new Java-based ransomware targets Windows and...
Security researchers have discovered a new kind of ransomware that uses a little-known Java file format to make it more difficult to detect before it detonates its file-encrypting payload. Consulting giant KPMG’s incident response unit was called in to run the recovery effort at an unnamed European educational institute hit by a ransomware attack. BlackBerry’s security research unit, which partners with KPMG, analyzed the malware and published its findings Thursday. BlackBerry’s researchers said that a hacker broke into the...

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Workshops, pitches and the shortlist of Europe’s...
Well the votes from the public and the judges are in and we can finally reveal the shortlist for The Europas Awards 2020 to find the hottest European tech startups! The entries were sorted and sifted by journalists to compile an editorially-driven ‘long list’ of some of Europe’s most exciting startups and investors. The list is below, plus information on the premium virtual workshops being held into key categories in the awards. The winners will be announced at the...

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A COVID-19 resilience test for B2B companies
TX Zhuo Contributor TX Zhuo is the managing partner of Fika Ventures, focusing on fintech, enterprise software and marketplace opportunities. More posts by this contributor Discovering that deckhands make great waiters — and why this matters Winning deals as a new venture capital fund Colton Pace Contributor Colton Pace is an investor at Fika Ventures. He previously held roles investing at Vulcan Capital and Madrona Venture Labs. COVID-19 has transformed the global business landscape. So much so that in...

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Andreessen Horowitz launches $2.2M fund to invest...
Andreessen Horowitz announced today in a blog post that it is launching a fund designed to invest in underrepresented and underserved founders. The Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund, which a16z says was in the works for six months, starts with $2.2 million in donations from the firm’s partners. TxO will be invested in a small group of seed-stage startups the first year and expand in size going forward. “We are looking for entrepreneurs who did not have access to...

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Challenger bank Varo, soon to become a...
Mobile banking startup Varo Money has raised an additional $241 million in Series D funding, the company announced today. The investment was co-led by new investor Gallatin Point Capital and existing investor The Rise Fund, co-founded by TPG. Also participating in the round were Bono (yes, that one), along with entrepreneur, impact investor and movie producer Jeff Skoll; plus HarbourVest Partners and Progressive Insurance. To date, Varo has raised $419.4 million in funding. Launched in July 2017, Varo is now...

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Monzo to lay off up to 120...
Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank, continues to be faced with tough decisions linked to the coronavirus crisis and resulting economic downturn. Following the shuttering of its Las Vegas-based customer support office and almost 300 staff being furloughed in U.K., the company has announced internally that up to 120 U.K. staff are being made redundant. Reuters first reported the news just moments ago — which I have now confirmed based on my own sources. According to an internal memo written...

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Idinvest shares some trends on European consumer...
French VC firm Idinvest has compiled some data about the European tech ecosystem. The firm has decided to focus on consumer tech in general, and there are some interesting trends that I’m going to break out here. You can read the full report here. The team has analyzed and surveyed 1,500 companies over multiple months. And Idinvest has identified rising stars in multiple different verticals, such as fintech, mobility, healthcare or travel. If a startup has raised more than...

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Facebook and PayPal invest in Southeast Asian...
Facebook and PayPal have made investments in GoJek, joining Google and Tencent among other high-profile technology firms that have backed the five-year-old Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm that also offers food delivery and mobile payments. Facebook, for which it is the first investment in an Indonesia-based firm, and PayPal did not disclose the size of their checks. GoJek told TechCrunch that Facebook and PayPal were participating in its ongoing Series F financing round, which brings it total raise-to-date to over...

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Daily Crunch: SpaceX’s crewed spacecraft successfully launches...
SpaceX made history this weekend, tech executives respond to the ongoing protests against racism and Zynga announces a big acquisition. Here’s your Daily Crunch for June 1, 2020. 1. SpaceX’s first crewed spacecraft successfully docks with the International Space Station SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Endeavor” successfully docked with the International Space Station as planned on Sunday morning, marking another key milestone during this historic Commercial Crew demonstration mission it’s conducting with NASA. On-board were NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob...

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Equity Monday: Tech’s stance on change, two...
Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a brief jumpstart for your week. A big thanks to start to the whole Equity crew for doing a stellar job last week with the show while I was on vacation, especially to Danny for taking on this particular installment of the podcast. Equity Monday is still pretty new, frankly, so him stepping up and into the role was a huge boon. Thanks, Danny. Right, so, what did we talk about...

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Bonusly, the platform for employee recognition, raises...
Bonusly, a platform that involves the entire organization in recognizing employees and rewarding them, closed on a $9 million Series A financing round led by Access Venture Partners. Next Frontier Capital, Operator Partners, and existing investor FirstMark Capital also participated in the round. Bonusly launched in 2013 when cofounder and CEO Raphael Crawford-Marks saw the opportunity to reinvent the way employers and colleagues recognize and reward their employees/coworkers. “I knew that, in order to be successful, companies would be...

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Startups Weekly: Remote-first work will mean ‘globally...
Editor’s note: Get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT). Subscribe here. Most tech companies base compensation on an employee’s local cost of living, in addition to their skills and responsibilities. The pandemic-era push to remote work seems to be reinforcing that — if you only skim the headlines. For example, Facebook said last week that it would be readjusting salaries for employees who have relocated away from...

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Daily Crunch: Trump takes aim at social...
President Trump follows through on his threat to challenge the legal protections enjoyed by social media and internet companies, Magic Leap’s CEO is stepping down and China sees its biggest autonomous driving round yet. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 29, 2020. 1. Trump signs an executive order taking direct aim at social media companies Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting the legal shield that internet companies rely on to protect them from liability for user-created...

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Bunq adds donations to charities and tests...
Challenger bank Bunq is adding a new feature that lets you donate to charities directly from the app. In addition to that, Bunq is also in the process of redesigning its app. The company is launching a public beta test to get feedback from its users. Other fintech startups, such as Revolut and Lydia, have launched donation features in the past. But in those cases, startups have selected a handful of charities. Bunq has chosen a different approach, as...

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Tech talent is flocking to smaller cities,...
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week’s show took a break from regularly scheduled programming. Our co-host Alex Wilhelm, who usually leads us through the show, was on some deserved vacation, so Danny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas took the reigns and invited Floodgate Capital’s Iris Choi to join in on the fun. It’s Choi’s fourth time being on the podcast, which officially makes her our most...

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