SpaceX, the US-based spacecraft producer and launch services provider backed by internet technology group Alphabet as an investor, has raised $850m in fresh funding, CNBC reported on Tuesday.
The round is thought to value SpaceX at $74bn and the company’s shares sold for $419.99 in the transaction. Concurrently, unnamed existing backers sold $750m worth of shares in a secondary transaction.
None of the investors or selling shareholders have been identified and SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment by CNBC.
Founded in 2002 and formally incorporated as Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches spacecraft, providing services for US space agency Nasa as well as private customers.
The company also operates Starlink, a planned constellation of thousands of satellites to deliver high-speed internet access globally. Starlink is expected to cost approximately $10bn to deploy and SpaceX plans to eventually spin off the business.
Apart from financing Starlink activities, the latest cash injection also comes as SpaceX forges ahead with work on its Starship rocket that it expects will eventually launch cargo and as many as 100 people at a time to the moon and Mars. Test flights for prototypes have begun.
SpaceX has secured approximately $6.5bn in funding overall. It previously raised $1.9bn in funding from 75 undisclosed investors in August 2020 at a $46bn post-money valuation.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s Teachers Innovation Platform, is thought to be the investor that provided $214m in 2019 that followed a $1bn round in 2015 led by Google, now the internet technology subsidiary of Alphabet, and featuring Fidelity at a $12bn valuation.
SpaceX’s shareholders also include DFJ, Capricorn Investment Group, Founders Fund, Baillie Gifford, Rothenberg Ventures and Valor Equity Partners.
