# Asian Space Startups, AI Data Defense, and Digital IP Scaling

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-06-02

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
The new Cubo One is successful with premium design, compact size and a small increase of 29 euros.
Thanks to innovative Press Brew Technology, every cup is very aromatic, with a cream.
Find the Cubo Capsel machine now in your Chibofiale and on Chibo.com.
Strava is helping security measures and declaring war on scrapers.
I'm Imran Shaikh and Tuesday's Daily Crunch starts right now.
As SpaceX counts down to what could be the largest IPO in history, the race to build the next generation of launch vehicles is heating up.
You see, Asia wants in.
Startups across Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea are racing to establish themselves in a market long dominated by the US and China.
One of them is Unastella, a four-year-old South Korean startup that just closed a $24 million Series B, bringing its total funding to $44 million.
The company launched its own rocket, the Una Express One, from South Korean soil in May 2025.
The Seoul-based rocket startup is developing its own launch vehicles and engines with an initial focus on small satellite launch services.
Unastella's near-term focus is validating its technology and business model through orbital launch.
with crude suborbital spaceflight as a longer-term goal, founder and CEO Jay Park told TechCrunch.
Unistalla uses a kerosene and liquid oxygen propulsion system, one of the most proven combinations in rocket history, and one that is also used by SpaceX's Falcon series.
In entertainment news, the YouTube-to-Prestige horror pipeline looked very strong this weekend.
Taking the number one spot at the box office is Backrooms, a feature film expansion of Kane Parsons' series of YouTube videos featuring...
eerie found footage of a mysterious office space, drawn from a 4chan thread, that defies physics.
Directed by Parsons himself, Backrooms will bring in an estimated $81 million at the domestic box office this past weekend alone.
That's the biggest opening by far for indie studio A24.
The previous record was held by Civil War, which made $25.7 million in its first weekend of release.
The number two film, Obsession, is...
pulling off something that's arguably even more impressive.
True, its estimated weekend total is a mere $26.4 million, but the movie, about a romantic wish gone nightmarishly wrong, already made more money in its second week than its first, and now its third weekend is set to grow another 10%.
For context, most wide-release films normally fall between 50-70% in their second weekend.
And finally, a fitness and social running company is sprinting to tighten up security because apparently AI companies have grown into data-hungry entities as their models require ever-larger datasets to train on.
To meet that need, many AI startups defy long-standing internet conventions, like respecting robots.txt files, which signal to automated crawlers which parts of a website are off-limits, and scrape data aggressively.
This has forced websites to restrict access to their data and, in some cases, strike licensing deals with AI companies.
Strava is making a move in this direction by restricting its website and introducing fees for developer access.
To stop scraping, the company is increasing security around its website and will now only allow authenticated users to view certain data.
Earlier, users were able to see details like public profiles and fitness club listings without logging in.
Well, the company is putting all that data behind authentication to protect it from unauthorized AI scraping.
Strava confidently filed for an IPO earlier this year, and its move to protect its data may be intended to signal data discipline to prospective investors.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Ivan Mehta, Kate Park, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
Same Tech Time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.