Blue Origin seeks to raise $10 billion in outside capital
TOKYO - Blue Origin is planning to raise $10 billion in the company's first outside investment to support its ambitions in launch services and satellite constellations.
The company is reportedly working to raise $10 billion from investors led by Coatue Management. The round would value the company at $130 billion. The New York Times first reported the planned investment.
Neither Blue Origin nor Coatue has publicly announced any investment. However, Blue Origin Chief Executive Dave Limp appeared to confirm it in a July 8 memo to company employees.
"This has been in the works for some time and represents confidence in our mission, our strategy, and most importantly, the work each of you has done to build Blue into the company it is today," Limp wrote in the memo, seen by SpaceNews. He said company executives would provide more details to employees in an internal town hall later this month.
The funding is significant because it would be the first outside capital Blue Origin has raised. Jeff Bezos established Blue Origin more than a quarter-century ago, funding it himself using his personal wealth from Amazon.com. For years, he said he sold $1 billion of Amazon stock annually to fund the company, although in recent years that level of investment has grown significantly.
Bezos, in a May interview with CNBC, indicated he was open to taking outside investment in Blue Origin for the first time.
"We finally have enough visibility into our future and our financial success," he said. "It's a good time actually to start thinking about the future and bring on some other outside investors."
He did not discuss in that interview how much outside capital the company was seeking to raise or from whom. Coatue describes itself as investing in "late-stage companies focused on identifying potential disruptors and next-gen platform companies," among others. It invested in SpaceX before that company went public, along with artificial intelligence companies Anthropic and OpenAI.
The new investment comes as Blue Origin embarks on several capital-intensive projects. The company is rebuilding Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, which was seriously damaged in a May 28 New Glenn explosion, while also working to scale up production of that rocket. The company told NASA's Office of Inspector General earlier this year that it wants to perform up to 50 New Glenn launches annually by 2030 and more than 120 annually by 2035.
Blue Origin is also a key player in NASA's Artemis lunar exploration campaign. A company executive said at the Spacetide conference here July 6 that Blue Origin has seven Blue Moon lunar landers in various phases of development, including those planned for crewed landings.
The company has made a push this year into satellite services. Blue Origin announced in January a broadband constellation called TeraWave with more than 5,400 satellites to serve enterprise customers. In March, it filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for Project Sunrise, an orbital data center constellation with up to 51,600 satellites.
"We are entering a period where opportunities in space are expanding rapidly," Limp wrote in the memo. "Securing this investment will be a clear vote of confidence from investors."
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