SpaceX’s stacked Starship and Super Heavy booster larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza – TechCrunch

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 6, 2021. We arrived at Friday. High-fives all around. If you own stocks or cryptos, you’re ending the week on a high. Crypto prices rise as some indices break records.

Before getting into the news, don’t forget that TechCrunch is launching another newsletter! Our very own Sarah Perez’s debut edition of This Week in Apps kicks off Saturday morning and is the place to go for all the great news about your apps. Make sure to register here.

Now for the news. – Alexis

The Top 3 TechCrunch

• SpaceX builds a 400-foot rocket: If you were worried the kid jokes about billionaire rockets were about to die out, fear not: SpaceX has stacked their Starship vehicle on top of a Super Heavy booster. This means a very tall rocket with a lot of oomph. This is the first time that Starship and Super Heavy have met.
• The changing value of insurtech startups: A few weeks ago, TechCrunch asked if the market should be worried about insurtech valuations. Then they took another hit. We broached the subject in the wake of Hippo’s IPO, deciding that most public insurance companies are cash-rich enough to not experience the downturns. Too much.
• What to expect from Samsung’s next hardware event: Samsung’s impending Unpacked event can be, well, packed. We got to see a new Galaxy Fold phone, new watches, wearable devices partnered with Google and more. TechCrunch will be covering the event this August 11, so stay close to the site for more.

Startups / VC

• DesignOps is the new DevOps: This is our take on zeroheight and its new $ 10 million Series A round. The startup “does for UX what DevOps platforms like GitHub do for building and shipping code, providing a central place to document and manage UX components,” CEO Jerome of Lafargue told TechCrunch .
• 500 Startups support Carta for Africa: Carta is an important part of the tech stack of American startups, helping to keep capitalization tables and stocks in order. As the startup scene in Africa grows, it will need something similar. And Raise builds it. According to the startup, most startup equity on the continent is still tracked with paper. It is time for that to change.
• Healthcare Provider API Raises $ 17 Million: APIs to help businesses manage their suppliers are not new. AgentSync is building something in the space for insurance brokers. Verifiable pursues a similar model, but focused on healthcare workers. As with Rapid, manual processes are replaced. Software is good at a lot of things, but relieving humans of certain types of bullshit is part of it.
• Card issuance APIs are coming to Africa: Thanks to the first Zambian company to join Y Combinator, I hasten to add. The startup in question, Union54, was first launched in 2015 under the name Zazu, a neobank. But he found the card-issuing space so punitive to work with that he tackled this problem, switching brands along the way. Card issuance is an important market in the United States and Latin America. Let’s see how it behaves in the startup space on a new continent.
• To wrap up our startup coverage today, TechCrunch has a nice, long look at the burgeoning startup hub of Utrecht, that corner of the Netherlands that always looks super gorgeous when you see a photo of it. Enjoy!

Create your pitch deck around “that thing that can really hook an investor”

We frequently publish articles with tips for founders working on pitch decks. It’s a fundamental step in every startup’s journey, and there are a myriad of ways to approach the task.

Michelle Davey of the Wheel telehealth staffing and services company and Jordan Nof of Tusk Venture Partners recently appeared on Extra Crunch Live to analyze Wheel’s Series A pitch.

Nof said entrepreneurs should frankly explain to potential investors what they will need to believe to support their startup.

“… It takes a lot of guesswork out of the equation for the investor and it redirects them to focus on the right set of problems you’re solving,” he said.

“You have this chance to somehow influence what they think they need to believe to get an investment here… if you don’t… we might get away from the grassroots. “

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can register here.)

Big Tech Inc.

• Amazon wins in Indian Supreme Court: Dissatisfied with the planned sale of Indian retail and warehouse chain Future Group to its category leader Reliance Retail, Amazon was granted a stay this week when the Indian Supreme Court ruled that a Singapore ruling to stop the transaction was valid in the country. . Watching an American tech giant oppose consolidation of players in a market may seem ironic, even hypocritical, but in business, it’s best to just remember that companies are amoral at best by nature.
• The dramatic costs at Velodyne are increasing: The Lidar Velodyne store, a company that went public through a SPAC, is still paying to cover the cost of internal drama and some executive departures. TechCrunch dug the company’s latest profits here.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

We reach out to startup founders to tell us who they turn to for the most up-to-date growth marketing practices. Complete the survey here.

Read one of the testimonials we received below!

Trader: Tate Lowry, Ranq

Recommended by: Anonymous

Testimony: “They’ve been on my radar since their co-owner sold the Here Pup electronic communications website. Tate and Perrin knew exactly what my site needed to ensure realistic growth. They didn’t blow up any promises; they did not nickel me and paid me a penny along the way. There are very few honest and genuine agencies that actually determine how they can and will help you. “