SpaceX Just Raised $1 Billion And Google And Fidelity Will Now Own 10% Of The Company
Reuters/Lucy Nicholson Elon Musk. Elon Musk's SpaceX has raised $1 billion from Google and Fidelity, confirming earlier reports from The Information and The Wall Street Journal .
The two new investors will now own just less than 10% of the company. SpaceX had previously raised $245.5 million in funding, according to CrunchBase, meaning this new round is more than four times bigger than all its other rounds combined. The company is now valued at more than $10 billion, according to The Journal.
Although the company's announcement is brief, earlier reports indicated that Google was particularly interested in a SpaceX investment because of Musk's recently announced ambitions to use satellites to beam low-cost internet around the world.
Musk told BusinessWeek he wants to create a global communications system that would be
"larger than anything that has been talked about to date," taking at least five years and $10 billion to build.
Google has long had similar ambitions itself. By spreading internet around the world, including to remote regions, it can boost the number of people who have access to its services. In the last several years, it has invested in balloons, drones, and satellites to experiment with different ways to provide internet to rural areas.
Here's SpaceX's full announcement:
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has raised a billion dollars in a financing round with two new investors, Google and Fidelity. They join existing investors Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Valor Equity Partners and Capricorn. Google and Fidelity will collectively own just under 10% of the company.
SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches the world's most advanced rockets and spacecraft. This funding will be used to support continued innovation in the areas of space transport, reusability, and satellite manufacturing.
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