SpaceX, the US-based spacecraft producer and launch services provider that counts internet technology group Alphabet as an investor, has raised $1.9bn in funding according to a regulatory filing yesterday.
The funding was supplied by 75 undisclosed investors and the round has a $2.1bn target for its close according to the filing, which came after Bloomberg reported last week that SpaceX was set to raise money at a $46bn post-money valuation.
Founded in 2002, SpaceX designs, makes and launches spacecraft, providing services for US space agency Nasa as well as private customers.
The funding came the same day as the company launched its 11th Starlink mission, consisting of 61 satellites. Starlink is intended to provide commercial broadband internet coverage from space by the end of this year and has some 600 satellites in its constellation.
SpaceX has now raised more than $5.6bn in financing in total, having pulled in $346m in May this year from unnamed investors at a reported valuation of $36bn. It had received $214m from a backer likely to have been Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s Teachers Innovation Platform, in July 2019.
Internet technology provider Google, now a subsidiary of Alphabet, invested $900m to lead a $1bn round for the company in 2015, with the rest supplied by investment and financial services group Fidelity, the round reportedly valuing it at $12bn.
Although SpaceX has not revealed the identity of most of its recent investors, its early backers include DFJ, Capricorn Investment Group, Founders Fund, Baillie Gifford, Rothenberg Ventures and Valor Equity Partners.
Photo courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies.
