Technology

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunchventure capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week Kate was in SF, Alex was in Providence and there was a mountain of news to shovel through. If you&re here because we mentioned linking to a certain story in the show notes, thathere. For everyone else, letget into the agenda.

We kicked off with a look at three new venture funds. In order:

• Tusk Ventures: Tusknew fund, worth $70 million, is an effective doubling of its prior fund$36 million size. The politically savvy firm has put money into Coinbase, and other companies that deal with regulated industries.
• Sapphire Ventures: SAPformer corporate venture fund Sapphire Ventures announced a whopping $1.4 billion fundraise this week. Sapphire may be one of or the most successful CVC spinouts to date.
• Moxxie: Katie Jacobs Stanton, known for co-founding #ANGELS, just closed her debut fund on $25 million. Kate chatted with her about her experience fundraising her very own fund, some of her previous investment and her plans for Moxxie Ventures, so there was plenty to unpack here.

From there we turned to the gender imbalance in the world of venture capital. This year, companies founded by women raised only 2.8% of capital. These not-so-stellar statistics are always worth digging into.

We then took a quick look at two different venture rounds, including ProdPerfect$13 million Series A and Peppersmaller $5.6 million round. ProdPerfectround was led by Anthos Capital (known for investing in Honey, which sold for $4 billion). The company has $2 million in ARR and is growing quickly. Pepper, formed by former Snap denizens, is working to help other startups lower their CAC costs in-channel. Smart.

And finally, Alex wanted to bring up his series on startups that reach the $100 million ARR threshold (Extra Crunch membership required). A first piece looking into the idea led to a few more submissions. There seem to be enough companies to name the grouping with something nice. Centurion? Centipede? Centaur? We&re working on it.

BoeingStarliner CST-100 crew spacecraft got off to a great start on its first-ever launch to the International Space Station this morning — but despite the rocket and launch vehicle performing as expected, the Starliner spacecraft itself hit a bit of a snag when it came time for its own post-launch mission to begin.

The Starliner capsule successfully separated from the ULA Centaur second-stage rocket that brought it to its sub-orbital target in space, but when the Starliner was supposed to light up its own engines and propel itself to its target orbit, the requisite burn didn&t happen. Boeing instead said that the spacecraft achieved a stable position to charge up its solar-powered batteries, and that it was working on the ground with its team to figure out which maneuvers come next to get the spacecraft where it needs to be.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine provided via Twitter at 8:45 AM EST the first substantial update about what went wrong, noting that there was an incident wherein the Starliner spacecraft &believed it was in an orbital insertion burn, when it was not.&

This means its mission clock encountered some kind of bug or error that told the Starliner systems it was at a different point in the mission procedure than it actually should&ve been. As a result, the spacecraft burned more fuel than it was supposed to and missed its intended orbital insertion point. The Starliner has subsequently done a second burn and is in a stable orbit, but it is no longer capable of reaching the International Space Station as planned.

At a press conference that kicked off around 9:38 AM EST, the NASA administrator kicked off remarks by noting that &a lot of things went right& in todaymission, regardless of the problems encountered.

&When the space craft separated from the launch vehicle, we did not get the desired orbital insertion burn that we were hoping for,& he continued, noting again that the spacecraft believed it was at a different stage in the mission than it actually was. Once ground control was able to send a manual command to correct it, it was &too late& to salvage the full mission of actually reaching the Space Station as planned because too much propellant was already burned.

Bridenstine also speculated that were NASA astronauts actually on board, they would &absolutely& have &been safe,& and that they probably could&ve assisted and overcome the automation error encountered via manual control to save the mission.

ULA CEO Tory Bruno explained that this was a fully successful launch from the perspective of the Atlas V launch vehicle, which flew in a different configuration than usual for the first time, so they consider it a win for their perfect launch record, having &literally hit a bullseye& for their target mission parameters.

&It appears that the vehicle was using a mission elapsed timer that was not the mission elapsed timer that the mission was on,& explained Boeing Senior Vice President of Space and Launch Jim Chilton. &We don&t know why that happened.&

The Starliner is currently in an orbit that will allow it to turn back to Earth in 48 hours, which Bridentstine and Chilton said in itself will be an important test of the landing system. Once on the ground, teams will be better able to figure out what happened on board the spacecraft with the Mission Elapsed Timer (MET) error.

As for what this means for the overall Boeing Commercial Crew mission, and whether this will impact the timing and sequence of the crewed flight test that was supposed to take place next, all parties say ittoo early to tell and they&ll need to do more investigation into what happened before determining whether therea need for another full orbital flight test before putting crew on a first test launch.

The Midwest may not be known as the fashion capital of the world (or even the U.S.), but its place in the consumer retail firmament is secure through L Brands and its VictoriaSecret and Bath - Body Works subsidiaries.

Now, venture investors are investing $17.3 million to establish another tent-pole clothing brand in the region, with a new commitment to the St. Louis-based clothing brand Summersalt.

Founded by a former Washington University design professor and swimwear designer, Lori Coulter, and a marketing and branding consultant, Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin, Summersalt launched in 2017 with a line of direct-to-consumer swimwear.

In the past two years, the company has expanded beyond its $95 swimsuits to include cashmere sets, packable jackets and wrinkle-free pants.

Initially backed by the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, backed by AOL founder Steve CaseRevolution investment fund, the company has gone on to attract capital from Founders Fund, Lewis and Clark Ventures and Victress Capital .

The latest round was led by Mercato Partners, a Utah-based venture capital firm.

&We could not be more thrilled with the opportunity to lead Summersaltlatest funding found, and partner with two passionate founders who have a clear vision, are mission driven and have a track record for accelerated performance,& said Joe Kaiser, a director with Mercato Partners, in a statement. &The product, brand, team and the incredible consumers make for a winning combination.&

Summersalt calls its line of clothing &travel wear& and used its footprint in the swimsuit market to expand its reach with other items that could be taken on trips to less-sun-drenched parts of the world.

&We are building a generation defining travel brand that goes beyond swimwear and apparel to create a community of curious women who love to explore,& said Coulter, the companypresident and chief executive in a statement. &Our unparalleled experience in apparel, deep supply chain expertise and fit-technology will be at the foundation as we continue to scale and build a brand with highly profitable unit economics.&