Elon Musk's SpaceX raises $1.9 billion in funding

[August 19, 2020]  (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has raised $1.9 billion in new funding, according to a regulatory filing https://bit.ly/3178nk3 on Tuesday.

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the automobile awards "Das Goldene Lenkrad" (The golden steering wheel) given by a German newspaper in Berlin, Germany, November 12, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo

This would be the largest single fundraising round to date by SpaceX, according to PitchBook data.

Bloomberg, which reported about the funding round last week, said the private rocket company will have an equity value of $46 billion after the transaction, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding comes as SpaceX races to build out its Starlink satellite constellation to offer broadband internet commercially by the end of 2020. The company launched its eleventh batch of satellites on Tuesday, and operates over 600 satellites in low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule completed its first two-month mission carrying astronauts for NASA in early August, with plans to start routine crewed missions to the International Space Station in late October.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington; Editing by Maju Samuel and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.