Build a new kind of rocket engine, and the world will beat a path to your door. Or at least that’s how it’s worked out for Venus Aerospace and its Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), an ultra-efficient way to hurl stuff into the sky.

The company was founded in 2020 by husband-and-wife duo, CEO Sassie Duggleby and CTO Andrew Duggleby, with the idea of developing clean-flying hypersonic jets for passenger travel. But after successfully demonstrating the engine last year, their plans changed.

“What happened when we flew last May is the world looked at us and said, ‘oh my gosh, you have a working RDRE, would you sell us one?’ And that wasn’t what we were expecting,” Sassie Duggleby told TechCrunch.

Now, the company is focused on hypersonic weapons development, replacing the solid rocket motors that power many missiles with its own thruster, and high-speed space vehicles that appeal to the military.

“Our propulsion architecture combines efficiency, throttling, reusability and manufacturability in a way that
customers need for real defense and space missions,” Andrew Duggleby said in a statement. “We are focused on translating technical progress into reliable systems for operational use.”

Venus announced a $90 million Series B round today that aims to put the company in a position to do just that by funding testing and development work on specific vehicle designs with potential customers. The funding round was led by Mercury Fund and saw participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper
Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, and Green Sands Equity.

The RDRE was dreamed up in the mid-20th century as a theoretically more efficient way to launch rockets; instead of burning propellants in a round chamber, the engine creates a continual supersonic wave of combustion that rotates through a circular channel. (Here’s a visualization.) The idea promised to waste less propellant, but the complex physics proved tricky to understand and control.

That’s changed in recent years, with the advent of 3D printing and better simulations. The first working test took place in 2020 at the University of Central Florida. NASA demonstrated an RDRE on the ground for the first time in 2022, while Japan’s space agency JAXA fired one for a few seconds in space in 2021. Venus’ 2025 test was the first time an RDRE launched a rocket into flight.

“When we first started Venus, the entire story was there’s a new type of rocket engine, we think it’s going to put out more heat and more thrust and be more efficient, but we think we know how to keep it from melting,” Sassie Duggleby said. “That’s been a lot of what our work has been over the last four years—how do we keep this engine from melting—and we’ve solved that.”

This year, the company was awarded a grant from the Texas Space Commission to build a new, larger test stand. That will be key for Venus: The longest it has fired its engine during 600 tests is 32 seconds, but it will likely need to burn for at least 6 to 15 minutes to meet the goals of its customers.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space rocket company Blue Origin is raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation from Coatue Asset Management, Bezos himself, and other large investors, The New York Times reported.

Coatue is expected to invest about $4 billion in the round, which would be Blue Origin’s first external fundraise. Bezos is said to be committing $2 billion, and the other investors will account for the remaining, according to the report.

The funding would follow a major setback for Blue Origin, whose flagship rocket New Glenn exploded during testing in late May as it was preparing for its fourth launch. The company hadn’t nailed down the reason for the explosion as of last week, but it still intends to use the rocket for launches later this year. Blue Origin also needs to rebuild its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, the only pad that can support the rocket and one of the most powerful launch vehicles in the world today.

Getting New Glenn operational is a top priority for Blue Origin, especially now that the company has refocused its efforts entirely on supporting NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon. The company also harbors ambitions to launch and operate data centers in space, capitalizing on a budding movement that seeks to move massive amounts of computing capacity to orbit.

Some of the funding might also help Blue Origin with its satellite internet network, revealed earlier this year, which would use thousands of satellites to provide data connectivity to enterprise, government and data center customers.

The funding follows SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO last month, in which the AI/datacenter/space company raised more than $85 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation.

WeWard, an app that offers users rewards for logging their steps, is launching a feature called “Walking Mode” that allows users to restrict their use of chosen apps until they hit a certain step count. The feature is supposed to motivate people to walk while also helping them reduce their screen time, if that’s something they’re looking to do.

If a user wants to scroll less on TikTok or Instagram while also making sure they make time for a daily walk, they could restrict access to the apps until they walk 3,000 steps, for example. The step goals and apps locked are customizable.

Until now, WeWard encouraged users to go on a walk by awarding them “Wards,” an in-app currency that can be exchanged for cash, gift cards, or donations. There’s also a gamified leaderboard feature, so you can engage in some gentle competition with your friends. But the addition of screen time reduction features makes sense for the app, since many users are looking for new ways to limit unnecessary phone and social media use.

With funding from tennis star and angel investor Venus Williams, the France-based app says that it has 30 million users across 29 countries, including 4 million U.S. users. The platform also says it has been shown to increase walking time by almost 25%.

“We believe the next generation of products should be designed to create healthier behaviors in the real world, not simply capture more attention,” WeWard co-founder Yves Benchimol told TechCrunch. “Walking Mode is our contribution to that vision, and we hope it inspires a broader conversation about mindful design and how the industry defines success.”

WeWard says that users spend only a few minutes per day in the app, which it considers a positive statistic, since the app isn’t trying to monopolize attention.

While some rewards apps fund their payouts by collecting and selling user data to third parties, WeWard says that it does not engage in these practices. Instead, it makes money from in-app purchases, affiliate marketing, premium subscriptions, and advertising.