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SpaceX is looking to raise about a quarter billion dollars in new funds, as Elon Musk’s company heads into a critical year for its three major projects.
The company is seeking to bring in about $250 million at a price of $220 a share, according to people familiar with the financing. The new raise would value SpaceX at around $36 billion, up from $33.3 billion previously. The round is not expected to close until the second week of March, those people told CNBC, and includes an equivalent purchase offer to existing SpaceX shareholders.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The details of the raise could change depending on market conditions between now and the second week of March.
Last year SpaceX raised $1.33 billion across three funding rounds. It’s one of the most valuable private companies in the world and, with consistently oversubscribed capital raises, SpaceX shares rank as some of the most in demand of any pre-IPO companies as well.
The steady fundraising comes as SpaceX continues development on three important programs: Crew Dragon, Starlink and Starship.
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken suited up inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
NASA
Crew Dragon is the company’s spacecraft its built to fly NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, as well as private space tourists on multi-day space missions. The agency has awarded SpaceX more than $3.1 billion to develop the Crew Dragon capsule since the company won its first contract for the capsule in 2014. Additionally, Musk has said SpaceX has spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” of its own funds to develop Crew Dragon.
The Crew Dragon capsule for SpaceX’s first astronaut flight arrived in Florida last week and is now undergoing final testing and prelaunch processing. Additionally, NASA confirmed in a statement on Feb. 14 that SpaceX will be the first to launch the agency’s astronauts from U.S. soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. Boeing, the other company developing a capsule for NASA, has had a number of recent issues set back its Starliner spacecraft.
SpaceX’s mission, called “Demo-2,” is expected to launch between April and June.
A stack of 60 SpaceX Starlink satellites float in orbit above the Earth.
SpaceX
Starlink is the company’s ambitious plan to create a global network of small satellites to provide high-speed internet to any place in the world. Known as a “megaconstellation,” Starlink is expected to consist of an interconnected system of about 12,000 satellites.
So far SpaceX has launched about 300 Starlink satellites, sending batches of 60 at a time into space every few weeks.
Its an immense undertaking for the company that, if successful, will make the company the world’s largest satellite operator by number of spacecraft. SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said two years ago that “it will cost the company about $10 billion or more” to build the Starlink network.
Additionally, SpaceX is considering spinning off its Starlink satellite business and taking it public in the next several years.
An artist’s rendering of SpaceX’s Starship rocket on the moon.
SpaceX
Starship is the name of the company’s immense, next-generation rocket. Musk’s dream is for Starship to be a fully reusable rocket, much like a commercial airplane, that can carry as many as 100 people to the moon and Mars.
SpaceX is building Starship at a facility in southern Texas, with launchpads under construction at that location and in Texas. Additionally, SpaceX is close to signing a lease with the Port of Los Angeles, where it would build a major manufacturing facility on about 18 acres of land near the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
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