SpaceX is seeking another round of funding. According to emails seen by CNBC, the launch juggernaut is raising $750M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z), valuing the company at $137B.
2022 was a busy year of fundraising for SpaceX. Last month, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was offering insiders the opportunity to sell shares at $77, a tender offer valuing the company at $140B. That offer came on the heels of an equity round in May valuing the company at $127B and a $250M round in July. All told, SpaceX raised more than $2B in 2022.
a16z, the reported lead investor of SpaceX’s latest financing round, also backed Elon Musk’s $44B Twitter LBO. The storied Sand Hill Road VC has also backed Apex Space, Hadrian, and Astranis.
SpaceX’s 2022: Last year, SpaceX blew past the competition in terms of launch cadence and reliability. The Falcon 9 flew 60 times last year. Tacking on one Falcon Heavy launch, SpaceX successfully launched 61 missions to orbit, setting a new bar for commercial launches in a year.
Starlink also reported a number of milestones in 2022. The service rolled out in a handful of new countries, including emergency deployment in Ukraine, and hit 1M subscribers last month.
Looking forward: With last year’s launch and reuse records in the rear-view mirror, SpaceX already has an ambitious 2023 planned. In roughly an hour, the company plans to ring in the new year with the Transporter-6 launch on a Falcon 9, sending 114 customer payloads to orbit.
Starship is also just about ready for its first orbital attempt. Regulatory challenges, product iteration, and all the other challenges that come with developing a new rocket kept SpaceX from launching the super heavy rocket from Starbase last year, but hopes are high for an orbital flight test sometime in the coming months.
