SpaceX Lands $20M Round from Founder’s Fund

August 5, 2008

SpaceX has received a $20 million equity investment from Founders Fund, a technology venture capital firm, headquartered in San Francisco.

SpaceX joins Founders Fund's existing portfolio, which includes Facebook, Powerset, Slide and Quantcast. Managing Partner Luke Nosek will join the SpaceX board as part of the financing.

However, SpaceX has endured a third launch failure recently.

It was the third time that SpaceX has come up short in its quest to orbit the Earth. In March 2006, a fuel line leak caused the first Falcon 1 to fail about a minute after launch. The second rocket, which was launched in March 2007, made it to space but was lost about five minutes after the launch when it started to spin.

“Founders Fund has a track record of investing in companies with the potential to revolutionize industries. We are pleased to be included in their portfolio and welcome Luke Nosek to our Board,” said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO, SpaceX. “Founders Fund shares the SpaceX vision of creating a world-class company that will shape the future through technological innovation.”

“We believe SpaceX will become the world leader in space transport and we want our investors to be part of that future,” said Luke Nosek, Managing Partner of Founders Fund. “Having reviewed their technology, outstanding engineering & business talent and the infrastructure they have built, we are highly confident in the future of the company.”

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles and spacecraft intended to increase the reliability and reduce the cost of both manned and unmanned space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. With its Falcon line of launch vehicles, powered by internally-developed Merlin engines, SpaceX offers light, medium and heavy lift capabilities to deliver spacecraft into any altitude and inclination, from low-Earth to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions. SpaceX currently has 11 missions on its manifest, plus indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts with NASA and the US Air Force.

As a winner of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition (COTS), SpaceX is in a position to help fill the gap in American spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires in 2010. Under the existing Agreement, SpaceX will conduct three flights of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for NASA, culminating in Dragon berthing with the ISS. NASA also has an option to demonstrate crew services to the ISS using the Falcon 9 / Dragon system. SpaceX is the only COTS contender that has the capability to return pressurized cargo and crew to Earth. The first Falcon 9 will arrive at the SpaceX launch site at Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008, in preparation for its maiden flight.

Founded in 2002, the SpaceX team now numbers over 500, located primarily in Hawthorne, California, with four additional locations: SpaceX's Texas Test Facility in McGregor near Waco; offices in Washington DC; and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.