SpaceX reportedly seeking to raise $250M as Starlink and Starship efforts ramp up

SpaceX is seeking to bring in about $250 million in new investment during a funding round that’s still underway, amid a burst of activity related to the company’s Starlink satellites and Starship super-rocket, CNBC reports.

• CNBC quotes unnamed people familiar with the investment round as saying it’s expected to close by mid-March, resulting in a roughly $36 billion valuation for the company. Privately held SpaceX raised more than $1.2 billion last year, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• Much of that money is going toward development, launch and testing of Starlink broadband internet satellites, which are being built at SpaceX’s facilities in Redmond, Wash. SpaceX teams are also working around the clock to build a huge Starship prototype in Texas, and there’s renewed talk of creating a Starship factory in the Los Angeles area. Later this year, SpaceX is expected to start transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.

• Reports of a fresh funding round underscore how expensive innovation can get, especially on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s timetable. The publicly traded company that Musk heads, Tesla, raised $2.3 billion this month in a stock offering. For what it’s worth, rival billionaire Jeff Bezos has said he’s spending more than $1 billion a year on Blue Origin, his privately held space venture.

H/T to CNBC’s Michael Sheetz, and to Steve Case for flagging a numerical typo.

More from GeekWire:

• SpaceX reports raising a billion dollars for Starlink and Starship space projects

• Report: SpaceX raising $500M to get Starlink satellite service off the ground

• SpaceX is trimming back 10 percent of its workforce in strategic realignment

• SpaceX’s Elon Musk says ‘goodness’ will come from twice-delayed Starlink launch