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According to reports from Bloomberg, Fidelity Investments was one of the biggest participants in the oversubscribed funding round.
Late on Tuesday (18 August), it emerged that Elon Musk’s space transportation services company SpaceX has managed to raise $1.9bn in new funding.
The news emerged from a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing first discovered by Reuters.
The week before Reuters published details on the SEC filing, rumours about the funding round had been published on Bloomberg.
It is reportedly SpaceX’s largest single fundraising round to date.
The funding
According to Bloomberg, Fidelity Investments is one of the biggest participants in the round. The publication said that SpaceX had originally been in discussions to raise about $1bn at a price of $270 per share. Excluding the new funds, that would value SpaceX at $44bn.
Including the latest round of funding, SpaceX is now valued at $46bn, according to Bloomberg, making the aerospace technology company one of the most valuable venture-backed companies in the US.
The company has been seeking funding since the beginning of 2020, eventually increasing the size of investment it was seeking due to strong demand from the investment community.
In addition to the funding, SpaceX recently received a $316m defence contract from the US government, which involves launching military satellites into orbit for five years, beginning in 2022.
According to Forbes, SpaceX boss Elon Musk is now the world’s fifth-richest person, thanks to a recent surge in stock from one of his other ventures, Tesla. Musk’s net worth is estimated to be $86.5bn.
SpaceX’s sixth Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX’s latest round of funding comes as the company takes on some landmark projects. The company is currently attempting to build out its Starlink satellite constellation to offer commercial broadband internet by the end of 2020.
On Tuesday, the company launched its sixth flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, which was caught on a drone ship for a potential seventh launch of the vehicle in future.
During the Falcon 9’s sixth journey to space, the vessel carried 58 Starlink satellites as well as three small hitchhiking probes operated by the company Planet. All of the cargo was successfully deployed into its intended orbits.
So far, the company has launched almost 600 satellites for its Starlink initiative and beta-testing has begun for a small group of users who have been conducting speed tests of Starlink through Ookla.
In addition to the recent satellite launches, SpaceX also completed the first-ever private human spaceflight mission in the US in May. The Demo-2 mission launched from Florida before returning to Earth earlier in August, along with the astronauts onboard.
The company has plans to start routine crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS) from late October 2020, according to Reuters.
