Elon Musk’s tunnel-making venture Boring Company hits a $5.7 billion valuation after raising $675M in new funding

The good news keeps coming for the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. Yesterday, Tesla beat analysts’ expectations in its first-quarter earnings report after the electric car company reported $18.8 billion in the first quarter versus the $17.92 billion expected.

Today, Musk’s tunnel-making venture Boring Company announced it has just raised $675 million in Series C funding at a $5.675 billion valuation. This means that Musk has created three separate multi-billion dollar companies and one trillion-dollar company in the last 20 years.

The round was led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures, and DFJ Growth, The Boring Company said on its website. In conjunction with the funding, the company said that a group of leading real estate partners of strategic importance are also joining the round, including Brookfield, Lennar, Tishman Speyer, and Dacra.

The Boring Company will use the new cash infusion to “significantly increase hiring across engineering, operations, and production to build and scale Loop projects, including Vegas Loop and others, in addition to accelerating the research and development of Prufrock and future products.”

We wrote about the Boring Company four years ago after the company raised $112.5 million for its hyperloop and high-speed tunnel projects. The idea behind the company started back in 2016 when Musk expressed his frustration with traffic congestion. Musk founded the company in 2o16 with the idea to revolutionize transportation.

“Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…,” Musk tweeted in  December 2016.

Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2016

Meanwhile, Musk announced today that Boring Company is hiring. In a tweet earlier today, Musk said, “Please consider working at The Boring Company! Our goal is to solve traffic, which plagues every major city on Earth.”

Please consider working at The Boring Company!

Our goal is to solve traffic, which plagues every major city on Earth. https://t.co/1tHNhIo7sd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022

Musk first revealed the concept for the tunnel system in 2017. Two years later, Musk made good on his promise to bring about his industrial experiment to build high-speed underground transportation systems in dense urban regions.

“Defeating traffic is the ultimate boss battle. Even the most powerful humans in the world cannot defeat traffic,” Musk added.

In March 2018, Elon Musk announced that the company would readjust its plan to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists over cars, which would only be considered for transport after all “personalized mass transit needs” were met.

Just two years ago, the company reported that its Las Vegas hyperloop high-speed tunnel was near completion. The Boring Company said the Vegas Loop includes LVCC Loop and any future service extensions including those to casinos along the Strip, McCarran International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, downtown Las Vegas, and eventually to Los Angeles. Vegas Loop will provide fast and convenient transportation to the Las Vegas community, its visitors, and beyond.