February 24, 2021

SpaceX is really just SPAC and an ex

19 minutes

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This is our first-ever Wednesday episode. If you want to learn more about the latest edition of the podcast, head here for more. This week we talked about space, an increasingly active part of the global economy, and a place where we're seeing more and more young tech companies place their focus.

We were lucky to have TechCrunch's Darrell Etherington join us for the show. He's our resident expert, so we had to have him on to chat about the space startup ecosystem. Here's the rundown:

SpaceX has raised a bunch more money, at a far higher valuation. We chat about why it didn't raise more, and how much capital there is available for the famous rocket company.

Starlink came up as well, as the satellite array just put another 60 units into orbit. What is it good for? We have a few ideas.

The second crew member of first all-civilian SpaceX mission revealed, and of course there is an IPO and startup angle involved.

Which brought us to a side conversation on which one of us are most interested in going to space commercially. It's the raised hands feature no one asked for, but take your guesses on who wants to go first and see if you're right.

Regardless, Axiom Space raises $130 million for its commercial space station ambitions

And then there was the Astra SPAC. You can read its deck here. What matters is that we get a look into how fast it plans to ramp future launches. And the answer is fast.

As we get more comfortable in our Wednesday episodes, we'll tinker with the format and the like. As we do, we're always taking feedback at [email protected], or over on Twitter. Hit us up, we're having a lot of fun but are always looking for ways to sharpen the show!

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.

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By TechCrunch, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, Anthony Ha, Sean O'Kane, Theresa Loconsolo

4.2

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