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Aurora Innovation said Monday it has hired Ossa Fisher as president as the autonomous vehicle company prepares to commercially launch its self-driving trucks business next year. The company said Fisher, who was most recently president and chief operating officer of education tech company Istation, will be based in Dallas. Aurora is headquartered in Pittsburgh and has offices in San Francisco and Mountain View, but its self-driving truck testing and operations is in the Dallas area. Aurora Innovation was founded in 2017 by Sterling Anderson, Drew Bagnell and Chris Urmson — three veterans of the nascent autonomous vehicle technology world who previously worked at Tesla, Uber and the Google self-driving project (now Waymo), respectively. Urmson is CEO, Anderson is chief product officer and Bagnell is chief scientist. Fisher’s experience building up and running a commercial business will balance out the more technical backgrounds of Aurora’s three founders, according to a company spokes...

Aurora Innovation said Monday it has hired Ossa Fisher as president as the autonomous vehicle company prepares to commercially launch its self-driving trucks business next year. The company said Fisher, who was most recently president and chief operating officer of education tech company Istation, will be based in Dallas. Aurora is headquartered in Pittsburgh and has offices in San Francisco and Mountain View, but its self-driving truck testing and operations is in the Dallas area. Aurora Innovation was founded in 2017 by Sterling Anderson, Drew Bagnell and Chris Urmson — three veterans of the nascent autonomous vehicle technology world who previously worked at Tesla, Uber and the Google self-driving project (now Waymo), respectively. Urmson is CEO, Anderson is chief product officer and Bagnell is chief scientist. Fisher’s experience building up and running a commercial business will balance out the more technical backgrounds of Aurora’s three founders, according to a company spokes...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Rocket Lab enters a new era with Virginia launch SpaceX moves closer to Starship’s first orbital flight test News from Quindar, AstroForge and more Rocket Lab’s Electron lifts off from U.S. soil for the first time Rocket Lab — and the United States — got a major win this week with the company’s first Electron rocket launch from Virginia. The mission, aptly titled “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” provides a major boost for the company as it seeks to increase launch cadence and provide rapid, “on-demand” launch capabilities from either hemisphere. It wasn’t an easy road. The mission experienced years of delays, mainly due to technical issues with a novel autonomous flight termination system developed by NASA. Once the technology was ready, Rocket Lab then experienced further (albeit much shorter) delays due to the mid-Atlantic’s inclement winter weather. Regardless, the launch went off without a hitch. It marks Rocket Lab’s 33r...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . Kicking off the week, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying Runa Sandvik ’s story about how U.S. police use digital data to prosecute abortions in our post-Roe-v.-Wade world. The TL;DR is that healthcare in the U.S. is a weird world, and you should use end-to-end encrypted messages if you’re going to DM your friends about things that are potentially illegal.  — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 “Power”ing up Marqeta’s portfolio : Marqeta made its first acquisition, securing Power Finance in a $275 million all-cash deal, Mary Ann reports. She writes that this move gives Marqeta, which focuses on debit and prepaid cards, some new capabilities in the way of credit products. What was the intent? : In this week’s The Station newsletter, Rebecca and Kirsten have the latest on Tesla, writing about what happened when Elon Musk took the stand relate...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Rocket Lab enters a new era with Virginia launch SpaceX moves closer to Starship’s first orbital flight test News from Quindar, AstroForge and more Rocket Lab’s Electron lifts off from U.S. soil for the first time Rocket Lab — and the United States — got a major win this week with the company’s first Electron rocket launch from Virginia. The mission, aptly titled “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” provides a major boost for the company as it seeks to increase launch cadence and provide rapid, “on-demand” launch capabilities from either hemisphere. It wasn’t an easy road. The mission experienced years of delays, mainly due to technical issues with a novel autonomous flight termination system developed by NASA. Once the technology was ready, Rocket Lab then experienced further (albeit much shorter) delays due to the mid-Atlantic’s inclement winter weather. Regardless, the launch went off without a hitch. It marks Rocket Lab’s 33r...

Founded by two insurance industry veterans, Eazy Digital wants to give small insurance companies in Southeast Asia the same advantage as their larger competitors. Its SaaS platform lets insurers digitize many parts of their operations, enabling them to scale up more efficiently. The Bangkok-based startup announced today it has raised $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Wing Vasiksiri and Sasin Bangkok Venture Club. Eazy Digital was founded last year by Haprem Doowa and Maethavee Sukul. Doowa was previously co-founder and CEO of Frank Insurance, an online digital broker in Thailand that was acquired by Bolttech in 2021. Sukul was head of operations at Frank, Bolttech Insurance Broker and digital health insurance broker Benix. Eazy Digital co-founder Haprem Doowa Doowa told TechCrunch that while working together at Frank, he and Sukul “both realized that the insurance industry was plagued wi...

Founded by two insurance industry veterans, Eazy Digital wants to give small insurance companies in Southeast Asia the same advantage as their larger competitors. Its SaaS platform lets insurers digitize many parts of their operations, enabling them to scale up more efficiently. The Bangkok-based startup announced today it has raised $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Wing Vasiksiri and Sasin Bangkok Venture Club. Eazy Digital was founded last year by Haprem Doowa and Maethavee Sukul. Doowa was previously co-founder and CEO of Frank Insurance, an online digital broker in Thailand that was acquired by Bolttech in 2021. Sukul was head of operations at Frank, Bolttech Insurance Broker and digital health insurance broker Benix. Eazy Digital co-founder Haprem Doowa Doowa told TechCrunch that while working together at Frank, he and Sukul “both realized that the insurance industry was plagued wi...