02
.
23
.
2024
DTN 049: Intuitive Machines Becomes First Private Company to Land on Moon
The Big Picture
Moon landing: US clinches first touchdown in 50 years
“A spacecraft built and flown by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines landed near the moon's south pole on Thursday, the first U.S. touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century and the first ever achieved by the private sector. NASA, with several research instruments aboard the vehicle, hailed the landing as a major achievement in its goal of sending a squad of commercially flown spacecraft on scientific scouting missions to the moon ahead of a planned return of astronauts there later this decade.” (Reuters)
The hard tech renaissance accelerates as YC spotlights space, manufacturing and defense
“Y Combinator is putting hard tech in the spotlight. On Wednesday, the accelerator released an updated list of ideas it would like to see in applications — with categories like space, manufacturing and defense featured prominently.
YC has backed plenty of hard tech startups before. Launch companies Stoke Space and Relativity Space and satellite broadband provider Astranis are among its alumnus. The accelerator’s biggest exit is still General Motors’ $1 billion purchase of autonomous vehicle company Cruise Automation in 2016.
But overall, hard tech comprises a very small fraction of the companies that have passed through its program. The accelerator is better known for nurturing breakout software startups in sectors like consumer and fintech. So the spotlight on hard tech suggests that YC sees hard tech as underinvested, and more likely to generate the massive valuation spikes required for a successful venture portfolio.” (TechCrunch)
Deep Tech News
- Ahead of testing, Blue Origin raises New Glenn on the launch pad for first time
- Nuclear SMR welding breakthrough: A year's work now takes a day
- Cali startup delivers first autonomous electric cargo plane for US Air Force
- Sun Bear Solar Farm Will Be Eight Miles Long, One Mile Wide, And Have Two Million Solar Panels
- Only real people can patent inventions – not AI, US Government says
- Waymo recalls software after two self-driving cars hit the same truck
- Europe's deepest mine to become giant gravity battery
- Orbital Composites and Virtus Solis team up for space-based solar power mission
JPEG of the Week
Peer Review
- AI Determines Sex of Person from Brain Scans
- Scientists use AI to identify new materials for carbon capture
- Cathedral termite mounds inspire lunar structure design
- 'μkiss': A new method for precision delivery of nanoparticles and small molecules to individual cells
- A new record for atom-based quantum computers: 1,000 atomic qubits and rising
- New chip opens door to AI computing at light speed
- New toolbox allows engineering of genomes without CRISPR
- MIT researchers demonstrate rapid liquid metal 3D printing technique
- The existence of a new kind of magnet has been confirmed
Funding x M&A
- Bioptimus raises $35M seed round to develop AI foundational model focused on biology
- ROAM secures $24M in Series A funding to expand electric motorcycle and bus production
- LeoLabs lands $29M Series B extension to help the US keep track of space junk and adversarial satellite launches
- How robotics and AI helped Hippo Harvest land $21M to grow lettuce
- .406 Ventures secures $265M for fifth fund
- Clarity raises $16M to fight deepfakes through detection
- AI voice startup ElevenLabs lands $80M round, launches marketplace of cloned voices
- Thea Energy raises $20M Series A for pixel-inspired fusion power plants
- Kairos Aerospace, a startup building methane-detection tech for the energy industry, raised a $52M Series D
- DustPhotonics, a developer of silicon photonics technology used in data centers and AI applications, raised a $24M Series B
- Direct air capture startup Clairity raised a $6.8M seed round
- Northwood Space, a satellite data startup founded by ex-Disney star Bridgit Mendler, raised $6M
- AtmosZero, a startup looking to decarbonize steam, raised a $21M Series A
Miscellanea
Japan's 'naked men' festival succumbs to ageing population / Science journal retracts peer-reviewed article containing AI generated ‘nonsensical’ images / Millions of donkeys killed each year to make medicine / "Accelerationism" is an overdue corrective to years of gloom / Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market / Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza tallies tenth retraction / When Every Ketchup but One Went Extinct / Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline's chatbot / A method to unilaterally disable all nuclear bombs on Earth
a digital agency built for the future.
Haus Biographics is a digital agency in NYC that specializes in marketing and communications for deep tech organizations. Check out our website, follow us on Twitter, or say hello@hausb.io
