This founder helped build SpaceX’s most powerful rocket engine. Now he’s building a ‘fighter jet for orbit’
·6 min
The episode opens with a sponsor message from Factor before introducing the host, Imran Shaikh. The first story details Collide Capital's $95 million fund close, led by Brian Hollins and Aaron Samuels, with backing from institutions like the University of California Endowment. The fund targets $1-3 million checks for 30 companies, having already invested in five. Next, the episode covers a partnership between Alphabet-owned Waymo and Waze to share pothole data collected by autonomous vehicles. The pilot launches in five cities: Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco Bay Area, where 500 potholes have been identified. Data will be accessible to cities and Waze app users. The final story focuses on Portal Space Systems, founded by Jeff Thornburg, who previously worked on SpaceX's rocket engines. The company raised a $50 million Series A at a $250 million valuation, led by Geodesic Capital and Mach 33. Portal is developing solar thermal propulsion, a technology researched since the 1960s but not yet deployed in orbit. The episode concludes with credits to TechCrunch journalists and a sign-off.
