Blue Origin, the space corporations founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has reportedly moved to raise outside funding for the first time since its establishment. The corporations was valued at $130 billion (about 195 trillion won).
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 8th (local time) that Blue Origin is seeking to raise a total of $10 billion (about 15 trillion won) based on this valuation.
This funding round is reportedly set to be led by large asset manager Coatue Management with a $4 billion investment. Founder Bezos also plans to contribute an additional $2 billion, and the remaining $4 billion is expected to be raised from major institutional investors.
This is the first time Blue Origin has taken outside money beyond Bezos. Since its founding in 2000, Bezos has effectively supported the company as its sole investor and shareholder. He is known to have funneled proceeds from Amazon equity sales into Blue Origin.
However, given the nature of space development, the scale of funding required has grown, raising the need for external investment. Blue Origin Chief Executive Officer Dave Limp said at a staff meeting in May, "An enormous amount of capital is needed that is hard to shoulder with a single person's investment."
Recently, Blue Origin suffered an accident in which its large rocket New Glenn exploded during a burn test, damaging the launchpad. However, the NYT noted that investors do not appear to be making a major issue of this bad news.