US-based transport system developer Hyperloop One completed an $85m series B-1 round yesterday that included GE Ventures, the corporate venture capital vehicle for industrial and power technology producer General Electric.
The round also featured Caspian VC Partners, a branch of diversified holding company Summa Group, as well as crowdfunded investment platform OurCrowd and VC firms Western Technology Investment and Khosla Ventures.
Hyperloop One claims to be the only company in the world to have built a full-scale Hyperloop system, the ultra-fast tubular transport technology introduced by Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2013.
The company has conducted feasibility studies in the US, UK, Russia and Dubai, and said it is advanced talks with the Dutch and Finnish governments over demonstrating the technology in their countries.
The round valued Hyperloop One at $700m according to Recode, and increased the company’s overall funding to $245m, $50m of which came in a round led by port terminal operator DP World in October 2016.
HyperLoop One had previously raised $80m in a May 2016 series B round backed by GE Ventures, rail operator SNCF, Sherpa Ventures, Caspian, WTI, Khosla, EightVC, ZhenFund, 137 Ventures and Fast Digital.
Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and executive chairman of Hyperloop One, said: “We are so fortunate that our new and existing investors share our vision of making Hyperloop the world’s first new mode of transportation in over a century. We initially targeted $50m and ended up raising $85m instead.
“As we move towards the commercialisation of our technology, we will continue to work with governments and embrace public-private partnerships to reimagine transportation as we know it.”
– Photo courtesy of Hyperloop One