Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space rocket company Blue Origin is raising $10 billion at a $130 billion pre-money valuation from Coatue Asset Management, Bezos himself, and other large investors, The New York Times reported.
Coatue is expected to invest about $4 billion in the round, which would be Blue Origin’s first external fundraise. Bezos is said to be committing $2 billion, and the other investors will account for the remaining, according to the report.
The funding would follow a major setback for Blue Origin, whose flagship rocket New Glenn exploded during testing in late May as it was preparing for its fourth launch. The company hadn’t nailed down the reason for the explosion as of last week, but it still intends to use the rocket for launches later this year. Blue Origin also needs to rebuild its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, the only pad that can support the rocket and one of the most powerful launch vehicles in the world today.
Getting New Glenn operational is a top priority for Blue Origin, especially now that the company has refocused its efforts entirely on supporting NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon. The company also harbors ambitions to launch and operate data centers in space, capitalizing on a budding movement that seeks to move massive amounts of computing capacity to orbit.
Some of the funding might also help Blue Origin with its satellite internet network, revealed earlier this year, which would use thousands of satellites to provide data connectivity to enterprise, government and data center customers.
The funding follows SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO last month, in which the AI/datacenter/space company raised more than $85 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation.
