Blue Origin is raising $10 billion in its first-ever outside funding round, at a pre-money valuation of $130 billion, according to The New York Times.
The round is expected to be led by Coatue Management, which has committed approximately $4 billion. An additional $2 billion will come from CEO Jeff Bezos personally, while large institutional investors are expected to account for the remaining $4 billion. The last portion of the raise has drawn strong interest, with a number of high-profile investors expected to join, according to CNBC.
Bezos had hinted at the move during a May appearance on CNBC. "We finally have enough visibility into our future and our financial success," Bezos said at the time. "It's a good time actually to start thinking about the future and bring on some other outside investors."
The round comes weeks after SpaceX's initial public offering, which raised approximately $86 billion and valued Elon Musk's company at roughly $1.75 trillion, making it the largest IPO globally. SpaceX's debut has broadly energized the space investment landscape, pushing up the valuation benchmarks that private aerospace companies can command.
Bezos established Blue Origin in September 2000, and the company has historically relied on him as its sole financial backer. NASA and the U.S. Space Force have both awarded Blue Origin significant contracts — among them roles in the Artemis lunar program and national security launches — yet the company remains well behind SpaceX in both launch frequency and revenue. While SpaceX generates substantial revenue through its Starlink satellite internet operation, Blue Origin has continued to focus on launch services, rocket engines, and government space programs.
The investors evaluating the deal have their attention trained on what Blue Origin intends to build next. One project drawing particular interest is TeraWave, a satellite communications network capable of handling high data loads that Blue Origin introduced in January; it is intended to provide connectivity to as many as 100,000 priority customers, including data centers.
The capital raise comes despite a turbulent stretch for the New Glenn program. Blue Origin's New Glenn placed a communications satellite into the wrong orbit, destroying the payload, and a separate ground test in May ended in an explosion that wrecked the vehicle. Blue Origin has said it plans to resume launch operations before the year is out.