Elon Musk may have been reluctant to take his SpaceX public, but his space venture has reportedly reached a milestone in terms of valuation.
What Happened: SpaceX was founded by Tesla, Inc.'s TSLA Musk in 2002 with the objective of making space travel cheaper and colonizing Mars. The company has attained a valuation of $100.3 billion, CNBC reported, citing sources.
The company reportedly has agreed with new and existing investors to sell up to $755 million worth of stock held by insiders at a price of $560 apiece. Since it is a secondary sale of existing shares, the company will not get any proceeds from the offering, the report said.
This would put SpaceX in the second position in the list of most valued private companies, behind only China's ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, CNBC said.
The per-share valuation has improved about 33% from the $419.99 share valuation in the previous capital raise of about $1.2 billion in February, the report said.
Related Link: Here's How You Can Invest In Elon Musk's SpaceX Before The Company Goes Public
Why It's Important: SpaceX operates in a high-risk, capital-intensive industry. It manufactures the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, several rocket engines and Dragon cargo and crew spacecraft.
The company is also developing Starship, a super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary spaceflight, and Starlink, a mega-constellation to provide commercial Internet service.
Starlink is now offering an initial beta service, both domestically and internationally.
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas had said in an October 2020 note that important milestones with Starlink, Starship and government contracts dovetail to support a base case enterprise valuation of $101 billion, with the bull case valuation at $203 billion.
Since then, Tesla was awarded NASA's $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the moon as early as 2024.
Related Link: Elon Musk's SpaceX Successfully Launches All-Civilian Crew Into Space, Inspiration4 Reaches Orbit
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
