Elon Musk’s SpaceX is currently seeking a new round of investment; it has been valued at $137. According to an e-mail sent to prospective SpaceX investors, Andreessen Horowitz will likely lead the new funding round. Early SpaceX investors included Founders Fund, Sequoia, Gigafund, and many others. Andreessen Horowitz was also an early investor in SpaceX. A $750 million investment is planned.
Elon Musk owns 47.4 percent of the company through his Elon Musk Trust and has 78.3 percent voting authority over the corporation, where he has assumed the duties of chairman, CEO, and CTO. SpaceX, which employs over 12,000 people, has grown into a dominant player in the space and communications industries under Musk’s leadership.
SpaceX originally gained international attention when it began working on the Falcon 9, a heavier-lift launch rocket that could be reused. SpaceX’s Dragon capsule became the first private spaceship to deliver goods to the International Space Station in May 2012, thanks to NASA funding connected with specific mission objectives. The corporation was valued at $1.2 billion at the time.
The Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicles are currently being developed at the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It is unclear when the corporation will proceed to the next stage of the program, which would include an orbital launch test of these larger vehicles. SpaceX demonstrated its capacity to successfully land and recover its Falcon 9 rocket in December 2015, and in 2017, it achieved a milestone by successfully landing a reused launcher. A subsequent fundraising round valued the firm at $21 billion.
Although privately held, SpaceX appears to have soared in the eyes of investors during this period, as the business performed a record 60 launches of its reusable Falcon rocket and kept internet services operational in crisis zones in Ukraine and Iran. Recently, NASA has been exploring whether SpaceX can assist with the rescue of occupants on the International Space Station, including an astronaut and two cosmonauts from Russia’s Roscosmos. In December, Russia’s Soyuz capsule suffered a coolant leak, and an examination is underway to assess whether the spacecraft can safely return the crew home or if emergency measures must be performed instead.
