Lumen Orbit has closed an oversubscribed, eight-figure seed round of more than $10 million, making it one of, if not the, hottest deal of the most recent Y Combinator batch, a source familiar with the details told TechCrunch.

The Redmond, Washington-based startup is pursuing a moonshot idea to build a network of data centers in space that can scale to a gigawatt capacity and be used to train large AI models. Lumen Orbit declined to comment.

The company went through YC’s 2024 summer batch and garnered a significant amount of attention from VCs, multiple VCs told TC. This interest led to an extremely competitive deal process for the startup’s seed round.

While Lumen has a lofty mission, the company seems to be making notable progress already. It was founded earlier this year and is planning to launch its demonstrator satellite in 2025 in partnership with Nvidia’s Inception program.

It’s not surprising that a company looking to build data centers in space would garner a lot of interest. There’s such a big scramble to power AI that companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are inking deals with nuclear power plants. Data centers are expected to consume 9% of overall energy consumption in the U.S. by 2030.

Lumen isn’t the only company looking to solve the potential data center crisis, nor is it the only one looking to take the issue to the great beyond. Lonestar Data Holdings is another that has raised $5.8 million and plans to build data centers on the moon.

Venture capitalists recently told TechCrunch that regardless of the data center solution, customer adoption is likely going to be tough for these startups. Still, VCs love to bet on companies with original solutions to big problems.

Lumen was founded in January 2024 by Philip Johnston, CEO, Ezra Feilden, CTO, and Adi Oltean, chief engineer. The startup had previously raised a $2.4 million pre-seed round in March that was led by Nebular with participation from Everywhere Ventures, Tiny VC and Sequoia among others.

Blizzard is bringing back 6v6 matches in testing for Overwatch 2 when it launches its next season in December. The company had previously switched the series to a 5v5 format, and Blizzard is now trying these tests to find how it can “make the core game even stronger” through a balanced new version of the classic 6v6 mode that lets each team have multiple tank characters once again.

Game director Aaron Keller says Blizzard knows the 5v5 format appealed to and brought in a new group of players, and developers are hoping to repeat that success with the addition of 6v6 (which won’t replace current formats). For a detailed write-up of what’s changing, you can read the full director’s take.

In July, Keller noted some of the issues 6v6 faced were hero balancing, game performance, and how to make sure players can still get into games quickly if it splits the population between 5v5 and 6v6 game modes. One hero balancing change includes giving tanks less survivability and making them not as powerful.

Overwatch 2 Season 14 will have two different opportunities to try 6v6; the first will use a new “Open Queue” format where each team of six must have at least one of each role (tank, damage, support) and no more than three of any role. You’ll also be able to switch roles on the fly. The second 6v6 test will happen in the middle of the season and will let you have two of each role per team.

There will also be a 5v5 test in Season 13 in which there will be a maximum of two players in each role, and tanks will be weaker than previously.

My colleague Richard Lawler, who is an avid player, said Overwatch 2’s change that removed one tank player from each team made the game simpler, but also “made it seem like the outcome of the game depended a little too much on that one role.”

• The web version of Google Calendar has been given an official dark mode
• The feature is rolling out globally this week to all Calendar users
• Google has also given Calendar a “refreshed user interface”

If you’ve been patiently waiting years for Google Calendar to deliver an official dark mode, today is your day – the web version of the app has finally been given a darker optional color scheme, along with a mild redesign.

The news came in a Google Workspace blog post where Google said that it’s introducing the ability to switch between light mode, dark mode, and default themes. As previous reports have noted, dark modes can give you a small battery life saving, particularly if you’re using a device with an OLED screen.

The update is rolling out now, though it’s also become available to a few members of the TechRadar team so far. To see if you have it, head to the settings cog at the top right of the page, then in the new drop-down menu click ‘Appearance’ (see above).

Four astronauts have been launched into space, before carrying out the first privately-funded spacewalk, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday. It marks the start of the SpaceX’s five-day Polaris Dawn mission.

Due to “unfavourable weather” the blast-off was delayed for almost two hours.  

ALSO READ | Human health in space: Charting the unknown on Polaris Dawn mission

The four crew onboard include billionaire Jared Isaacman, retired Air Force Thunderbirds pilot Lt Colonel Scott Poteet, and two SpaceX engineers–Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. 

This is the first privately funded spacewalk. Earlier, only government-funded astronauts have carried out spacewalks.

The spacewalk is scheduled for late Wednesday or Thursday, midway through the five-day flight. Follow the mission here: https://www.spacex.com/follow-dragon

The plan is to spend 10 hours at that height filled with extreme radiation and riddled with debris before reducing the oval-shaped orbit by half. 

Isaacman and Gillis will take turns briefly popping out of the hatch and also test their white-black-trimmed custom suits and see how they’ll hold up in the harsh vacuum. 

Both will always have a hand or foot touching the capsule or attached support structure that resembles the top of a pool ladder. There will be no jetpack showboating and no dangling at the end of their 12-foot (3.6-metre) tethers. Only NASA’s suits at the space station come equipped with jetpacks, for emergency use only.

Pilot Scott Kidd Poteet and SpaceX’s Anna Menon will monitor the spacewalk from inside. Like SpaceX’s previous astronaut flights, this one will end with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

SpaceX teamed up with Isaacman to pay for spacesuit development and associated costs.

William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president said that we are starting to push the frontiers with the private sector. 

As SpaceX astronaut trainers, Gillis and Menon helped Isaacman and his previous team and NASA’s professional crews prepare for their rides.

Fans of the Predator franchise are getting not one but two new movies in 2025.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell revealed future plans for the Predator franchise, including a new movie from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. Instead of making Prey 2, Trachtenberg helmed Predator: Badlands, a new entry in the franchise starring Elle Fanning.

“After Prey became a success, Dan [Trachtenberg] came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2,” Asbell said. “And we’re like, “What do you want to do?” And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other one is the live-action Predator film with Elle Fanning that just wrapped in New Zealand. That’ll be out theatrically sometime next year.”

A secret, second Predator movie

Earlier this week, Disney removed Blade from its release date of November 7, 2025, and replaced it with Predator: Badlands. Trachtenberg directs the film from a script he co-wrote with Patrick Aison. After praising Badlands, Asbell dropped the bombshell that Trachtenberg filmed a secret Predator movie that will come out before Badlands. However, Asbell did not reveal any details besides the fact that it will be released in some form next year.

What comes after Alien: Romulus?

Switching gears, Asbell discussed the Alien franchise and the success of Alien: Romulus, which grossed over $350 million worldwide this past summer. With box office success like that, sequel talks will always percolate. Asbell confirmed 20th Century is working on a sequel and believes it will happen once they close a deal with Romulus director Fede Alvarez.

“He [Alvarez] has an idea that we’re working on,” Asbell explained. “The two survivors, Rain and Andy, played by Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson, were real highlights of the film. And so I always think of it like, “Wow, where do people want to see them go next?” We know there’s going to be aliens. We know there’s going to be great horror set pieces. But I fell in love with both of them and I want to see what their story is.”

Alien: Romulus is now available for purchase on digital platforms.