SpaceX raises $850 million in new funding, raising valuation to $74 billion

In the summer of 2020, SpaceX raised $1.9 billion in funding at a little over $40 billion in valuation, according to a regulatory filing which showed that 75 investors made equity investments in Elon Musk’s launch company. The announcement came just three months after Elon Musk’s space company became the first private company to send humans to the International Space Station.

Fast forward a few months later. Last week, SpaceX announced it has completed an equity funding round of $850 million, according to a report from CNBC citing people familiar with the financing told CNBC.

The new funding sends the company’s valuation to about $74 billion, which represents a jump of about 60% in the company’s valuation from its previous round in August 2020. The company raised the new funds at $419.99 a share, those people said, or just 1 cent below the $420 price that Elon Musk made infamous in 2018.

Founded in June 2002 by Elon Musk, SpaceX is a space-transportation startup company. SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. develops crew and cargo capsules, engines, cryogenic tank structures, avionics, equipment, guidance, and control software.

SpaceX’s achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the Sun (Falcon Heavy’s payload of a Tesla Roadster in 2018), and the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station (Dragon 2 in 2020).

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule delivered NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station in May, marking the first U.S. space capsule to do so with a crew since 2011.

The private rocket company also raised $346.2 million in May at a valuation of about $36 billion. Musk is also the chief executive officer of electric carmaker Tesla.