SpaceX might be raising new funding at a $10B valuation

The privatized space travel business is proving very successful for early player SpaceX, and now the company is rumored to be raising a major new round of funding.

Since being founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk back in 2002, the company has gone on to get lucrative space transportation contracts from U.S. space agency NASA after it was deemed less expensive to pay private companies to make the voyage on routine supply missions as well as satellite launches and the like. It’s also picked up contracts from other foreign government space programs such as Canada.

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While an exact amount of new funding wasn’t specified, a report from TechCrunch indicates that the round could push SpaceX’s valuation to an estimated $10 billion. A previous report from Quartz put the funding amount at somewhere between $50 million and $200 million. Some of the investors that might be participating in the round include Blumberg Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and other international venture firms, according to TechCrunch’s sources.

If true, SpaceX would likely use the new capital to further advance its reusable rocket technology, refine and build towards a commercialized mission to neighboring planet Mars and go after more lucrative contracts. The company is also planning to build a new commercial space port in Brownsville, Tex., as VentureBeat previously reported. And last but not least is SpaceX’s ambitions to take on military contracts, as prompted by Musk’s comments back in April.

SpaceX for it part has denied both that it was raising money as well as the estimated valuation.