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The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule stand upright on the launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Demo-2 launch.
SpaceX raised well over the $500 million it was seeking in its most recent funding round, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal.
Elon Musk’s space company on Tuesday filed an amendment to its previous funding raise, just a day before the most important launch in SpaceX history. The company had been seeking about $500 million, CNBC reported in March. The initial filing showed the company raised $221.2 million, while the amendment added another $345.2 million — for a total raise of more than $567 million.
The amendment comes the day before SpaceX plans to launch astronauts for the first time, in a mission called Demo-2 for NASA that is scheduled to liftoff on Wednesday. The mission will be the first launch of NASA astronauts from the U.S. since 2011, with Musk and President Donald Trump planning to be there in person to watch the launch.
SpaceX’s most recent funding round means the company has raised almost $2 billion since the beginning of 2019. With a valuation of around $36 billion, SpaceX remains one of the most valuable pre-IPO companies in the world.
The company has steadily raised funding as it continues to simultaneously develop three ambitious programs: its Crew Dragon spacecraft, Starlink internet satellites and massive Starship rocket. Crew Dragon and Starship represent SpaceX’s efforts to fly people in space. But Starlink is an ambitious plan to create a global network of small satellites to provide high-speed internet to any place in the world. Known as a “megaconstellation,” Starlink is expected to consist of an interconnected system of about 12,000 satellites.
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