SpaceX raises $1.16 billion in equity funding over two months

Billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX has raised about $1.16 billion in equity financing over the last two months, the private rocket company said in an amended regulatory filing on Wednesday.

As reported by Reuters, the filing comes after SpaceX, whose investors include Alphabet Inc and Fidelity Investments, in February disclosed that it raised about $850 million, which had reportedly lifted its valuation to about $74 billion.

The private space company had raised $1.9 billion in August in its largest single fundraising round, according to financial software and data provider PitchBook.

Strong demand for the company’s shares centers around its ambitious Starship and Starlink projects.

Starship is the next-generation rocket that Musk’s company is developing, designed to be more powerful than even the Saturn V rockets that carried astronauts to the moon.

Starlink is a global satellite network, which SpaceX is beginning to use to bring high-speed internet to customers.

In February, a prototype of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, SN9, blew up on its final descent, like SN8 before it. The SN9 was a test model being developed to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.

Following this, the US House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said last month it was investigating a SpaceX commercial space launch that regulators determined violated US safety requirements and its test license.

Musk, who also leads several futuristic companies, including Tesla, Neuralink, and Boring Co, said last month SpaceX will be landing its Starship rockets on Mars well before 2030.