Skip to main content

Deck.blue brings a TweetDeck experience to Bluesky users

With over 3 million users and plans to open up more broadly in the months ahead, Bluesky is still establishing itself as an alternative to Twitter/X. However, that hasn’t stopped the developer community from embracing the project and building tools to meet the needs of those fleeing the now Elon Musk-owned social network, formerly known […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/TBbEAPF
Post a Comment

Virgin Orbit burns up in uncontrolled descent

Virgin Orbit is laying off around 85% of its workforce in order to further reduce expenses, after the troubled space company said it was unable to secure additional funding to keep it afloat.

The news, which Virgin Orbit filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday, comes just two weeks after the company furloughed all employees and entered an “operational pause” in order to find more cash. There were talks that Matthew Brown, a Texas-based venture capitalist, may come to the rescue, but those talks dissolved over the last weekend. Today’s filing confirms that Virgin was unable to find another lifeline.

According to audio of an employee all-hands on Thursday afternoon obtained by CNBC, Virgin CEO Dan Hart – reportedly choking up, again per CNBC – said, “We have no choice but to implement immediate, dramatic and extremely painful changes.”

He said the call would “probably the hardest all-hands that we’ve ever done in my life.”

The layoffs span all departments. But even the workforce reduction comes with a price tag for cash-strapped Virgin Orbit: the company will pay around $8.8 million in severance payments and employee benefits costs, plus a separate $6.5 million related to outplacement services and regulatory compliance.

To pay for these immediate expenses, Virgin got a $10.9 million injection from Virgin Group, the umbrella company that oversees billionaire Richard Branson’s various businesses.

Virgin Orbit is the brainchild of Branson, who is still the company’s majority owner. But evidently even Branson – who in recent months, through his conglomerate Virgin Group, threw upwards of $55 million to the sinking space company – is done funding the company.

Virgin Orbit can lay claim to four successful missions using its unique system, which uses a modified Boeing 747 to release a rocket mid-flight. The company’s most recent mission, from Cornwall, U.K., ended in failure due to an issue with the rocket’s second stage, posing a major blow to Virgin’s plans to continue launch this year.

Shares of Virgin Orbit have tanked to just $0.34, down from $1.32 at the beginning of the month.

Developing…

Virgin Orbit burns up in uncontrolled descent by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/4Oi6JIh
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New month, new crypto market moves?

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here . Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Seems like just yesterday we were ringing in the New Year, but we’ve coasted into February and all seems to be somewhat relaxed (for once) in the crypto world. Last month was filled with crypto companies laying off staff , developments around the existing and new Chapter 11 bankruptcies in the space, partnerships and conversations about potential recovery in 2023. Even with a range of bad news flooding the industry, some cryptocurrencies had a bull run in January, amid the market turmoil. Bitcoin rallied 40% on the month, while ether rose about 32% during the same period. Solana also saw serious recovery, from about $10 in the beginning of the year, near its lowest level since February 2021, up 146% to about $24.3 by the end of January, CoinMarketCap data showed. These market movements could pot...
Post a Comment
Read more

Metaverse app BUD raises another $37M, plans to launch NFTs

BUD , a nascent app taking a shot at creating a metaverse for Gen Z to play and interact with each other, has raised another round of funding in three months. The Singapore-based startup told TechCrunch that it has closed $36.8 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital India, not long after it secured a Series A extension in February . The new infusion brings BUD’s total financing to over $60 million. As with BUD’s previous rounds, this round of raise attracted a handful of prominent China-focused investors — ClearVue Partners, NetEase and Northern Light Venture Capital. Its existing investors GGV Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Source Code Capital also participated in the round. Founded by two former Snap engineers Risa Feng and Shawn Lin in 2019, BUD lets users create bulbous 3D characters, cutesy virtual assets and richly colored experiences through drag-and-drop and without any coding background. The company declined to reveal its active user size but said its use...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nimbus launches tiny EV prototype that’s like a motorbike with a roof

As shared e-scooter companies have infiltrated cities and e-bike sales have soared, micromobility has been offered up as a panacea to save us all from the ill humors and packed streets caused by gas-guzzling cars. However, one of the major roadblocks in front of well-intentioned city dwellers who’d love to trade in their cumbersome and environmentally unfriendly vehicles for an e-bike or scooter remains: What happens when it rains? Nimbus, a California-based electric vehicle startup, wants to solve that problem with a simple solution: Put a roof on it. The company recently came out of stealth with a prototype for its Nimbus One, a tiny, three-wheeled EV that “combines the convenience and cost of a motorbike with the safety and comfort of a car.” The Nimbus One. Image Credits: Nimbus The thin, pod-like vehicle is only about 2.75 feet wide and 7.5 feet long, which Nimbus says makes it three to five times smaller than a compact car — the better to park and navigate busy urban stree...
Post a Comment
Read more