Welcome to Edition 8.01 of the Rocket Report! Today's edition will be a little shorter than normal because, for one day only, we celebrate fake rockets—fireworks—rather than the real thing. For our American readers, we hope you have a splendid Fourth of July holiday weekend. For our non-American readers, you may be wondering what the heck is happening in our country right now. Alas, making sense of <waves hands> all this is beyond the scope of this humble little newsletter.
As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Will Orbex ever launch an orbital rocket? Orbex, a launch services company based in the United Kingdom, has announced the postponement of its first orbital launch to 2026 due to infrastructure limitations and other issues, Orbital Today reports. At the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget, Orbex chief executive Miguel Bello Mora announced that the company is now targeting next year for the liftoff of its Prime rocket from SaxaVord in Scotland. He said the delay is partly due to the limited launch infrastructure at SaxaVord and a "bottleneck" in site operations.
© ESA/ArianeGroup
Compared to the Pixel 10 series, the Pixel Watch 4 has yet to extensively leak this cycle. That’s now changing with details about Pixel Watch 4 colors across cases and bands.
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Bicycle phone mounts have been a regular part of my life in bike-obsessed Amsterdam ever since 2008, when I got my first phone with built-in GPS and turn-by-turn navigation. I've used dozens of mounts since, until they were either lost, broken, or stolen, or something better emerged.
I could have saved a ton of money and annoyance had the $49.95 Loop Micro Mount been available all those years ago.
For the last few weeks, I've been testing the ultra-compact Micro Mount. It took all of three minutes to unbox and screw into my bike's stem cap. Then it just sits there discreetly, out of the way until I expand its jaws to help guide me into pla …
Slate Auto’s American-made electric pickup — the one with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen — is no longer priced “under $20,000.” The increase is a result of Trump’s “Big, beautiful bill,” which will end the federal EV tax credits on September 30th when signed into law later today.
That sub-$20,000 price for the Indiana-built pickup was a big selling point for the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, and was only possible after applying the $7,500 tax credit to the retail price. The price promotion was scrubbed from the Slate Auto site as recently as yesterday, according to TechCrunch. The website now shows an expected price of “mid-twenties.”
Slate’s under $20,000 price tag for a vehicle it won’t start delivering until late 2026 was always accompanied by an asterisk, with fine print highlighting federal incentives that were “subject to change.” And change was certainly expected: Trump campaigned heavily on the promise to end President Biden’s fictitious “EV mandate,” because electric cars are for socialists in MAGA world.
Trump’s embrace of oil and gas, while simultaneously dismantling incentives meant to spur the adoption of EVs and clean energies, is a gift to Chinese makers of electric cars, solar panels, and batteries. The US is now on course to own the past while China is firmly positioned to dominate the future.
As brands step up their podcast marketing spend, podcast companies are putting on more live events to meet the growing demand.
In 2024, SiriusXM dipped its toes into live podcast events for the first time, organizing 10 live podcast events over the course of the year. So far in 2025, the company has already held 18 live podcast recordings, with plans to double or triple its overall number of live podcast events by the end of the year.
SiriusXM’s live podcasts, whose audiences typically involve 40 or 50 fans, are not ticketed events. However, they represent a growing revenue stream for the company thanks to sponsorships by advertisers such as Hershey’s and Macy’s, with SiriusXM holding the events at both the company’s in-house recording studio in its New York City headquarters and at venues such as Avalon Hollywood. So far this year, SiriusXM Media has more than doubled the number of sponsors and corresponding ad revenue for its live podcast events, according to svp of strategic solutions Karina Montgomery, who declined to give exact figures but said that “ad revenue from these events is already up 160 percent as of June 2025, compared to all of 2024.”
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This article was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail.
In 2025, influencer marketing is nothing new. Nevertheless, some major big-box retailers just launched creator programs in response to the evolution of how people interact with social content and creators.
Best Buy in April launched the Best Buy Creator program, which gives creators the ability to create a storefront to highlight their content and earn a commission on sales of products in their tailored collections with no commission cap. Some of the first influencers to join the program have included Linus Sebastian of YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, Judner Aura of UrAvgConsumer, and tech and lifestyle creator Jenna Ezarik.
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It’s Thursday, July 3, 2025, and we’re back with your daily tech funding snapshot of where venture capital is flowing and which startups are shaping the next wave of global tech innovation. Happy 4th of July to our U.S. readers! […]
The post Top 10 Startup and Tech Funding News – July 3, 2025 first appeared on Tech Startups.
