Blue Origin Raises $10B at $130B Valuation in First Funding Round
Quick Reads
- Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company has raised $10 billion from outside investors for the very first time. Bezos has been funding the company entirely out of his own pocket since he founded it in 2000, mostly by selling Amazon shares.
- Bezos had already said in May the company was “considering” outside investment SpaceX’s record-breaking debut almost certainly pushed him to move faster.
- Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded during a ground test in late May, destroying its only launchpad at Cape Canaveral.
Blue Origin has raised outside capital for the first time in its 25-year history, closing a $10 billion funding round that values Jeff Bezos’ rocket company at $130 billion and positions it to intensify competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Coatue Leads, Bezos Chips In, and Rivals Take Notice
The Blue Origin $10 billion funding round is being led by Coatue Management, which expected to invest approximately $4 billion, while Bezos is personally committing $2 billion. Several major institutional investors are competing for the remaining $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter cited by CNBC and Bloomberg.
The pre-money valuation of $130 billion leapfrogs the $112 billion at which SpaceX was last privately valued in late 2024, though SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO last month raised nearly $86 billion at a $2 trillion valuation, minting Musk a trillionaire and almost certainly accelerating Bezos’ decision to open Blue Origin to outside investors for the first time.
Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 and has personally bankrolled the company ever since, primarily through sales of his Amazon stock. The decision to seek external funding comes at a complicated moment for the company. Its flagship heavy-lift rocket, New Glenn, exploded during a static hot-fire test at Cape Canaveral in late May 2026, damaging the launchpad the only one capable of supporting the rocket and forcing the company into a rebuilding process that remains ongoing.
Bezos and CEO Dave Limp have set a target to return New Glenn to flight by end of 2026. Despite the setback, investors appear drawn to Blue Origin’s pipeline, which includes a $3.4 billion NASA Artemis lunar lander contract, upcoming satellite launches for Amazon and AST SpaceMobile, and TeraWave the company’s broadband satellite communications network unveiled in January.
In 2024, Bezos told employees it would “take a lot of capital” for Blue Origin to achieve its goals.
