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SpaceX just got more valuable


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SpaceX is in the midst of a funding round that has already pulled Elon Musk's rocket company past a $30 billion valuation.

The new capital cements SpaceX's position as one of the highest-valued private startups in the world, according to several firms that track private startups.

SpaceX disclosed its latest funding round in a financial filing posted Thursday. The company has sold $273 million worth of shares to eight investors. That accounts for just over half of the shares it put up for sale last month in a $500 million funding round.

If SpaceX sells all of them, the company will be worth $30.5 billion. The new valuation and funding round were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. It's not clear when the company's deadline is to sell the remaining shares.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/03/business/spacex-valuation-500-million-fundraising-round/index.html

:dancing:

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I like to see SpaceX succeed, but if I'm not mistaken they've been trying to sell these shares for a while. They seem to be having trouble getting the money at that valuation, and my guess is that it's because they still seem like a risky bet. They have a very solid business going, but they're essentially betting it all on their next rockets and a space based internet proposal that has yet to be proven valuable.

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27 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I like to see SpaceX succeed, but if I'm not mistaken they've been trying to sell these shares for a while. They seem to be having trouble getting the money at that valuation, and my guess is that it's because they still seem like a risky bet. They have a very solid business going, but they're essentially betting it all on their next rockets and a space based internet proposal that has yet to be proven valuable.

 

No doubt that Starlink (SpaceX's satellite internet system) and Starship (Super heavy lift Mars rocket) are risky bets - there is a good chance that neither is successful.  But at the same time, if they are successful, SpaceX will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and not (just) $30 billion.  I'd actually like to see Musk sell his stake in Tesla and concentrate on SpaceX alone.  Tesla, and the electric vehicle industry in general, is at the tipping point where EVs will become common and the market will sustain itself.  Affordable space access still needs quite a bit of hand holding.  

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41 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I like to see SpaceX succeed, but if I'm not mistaken they've been trying to sell these shares for a while. They seem to be having trouble getting the money at that valuation, and my guess is that it's because they still seem like a risky bet. They have a very solid business going, but they're essentially betting it all on their next rockets and a space based internet proposal that has yet to be proven valuable.

Those are definitely risky ventures, but it seems that their standard business of firing satellites for other state entities and companies is still their bread and butter (and will be for a while regardless of their Starlink stuff). 

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1 minute ago, mclumber1 said:

No doubt that Starlink (SpaceX's satellite internet system) and Starship (Super heavy lift Mars rocket) are risky bets - there is a good chance that neither is successful.  But at the same time, if they are successful, SpaceX will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and not (just) $30 billion.  I'd actually like to see Musk sell his stake in Tesla and concentrate on SpaceX alone.  Tesla, and the electric vehicle industry in general, is at the tipping point where EVs will become common and the market will sustain itself.  Affordable space access still needs quite a bit of hand holding.  

I agree. They could easily be worth quite a lot more than they are now, but they're also in an odd market. 2018 was a huge year for spaceflight, being the first with more than 100 launches since 1990. Out of the 114 orbital launches, SpaceX had 20, while their nearest competitor ULA had 9. More importantly 39 were from China and a whole bunch (didn't bother to count) were from Russia with a smattering of launches from India, the EU, and elsewhere.

 

China will probably never let them take over their launches, so that part of the market is effectively closed. The same goes for government launches in Russia and everyone else that wants to have their own launch capabilities. Certainly some of the launches from Russia can be captured by SpaceX (ISS crews, commercial work, etc.), but the pie is only so big. In the US, there's a national security interest in having multiple launch capable entities, so even if SpaceX is 100% successful with Starship and continues to push price boundaries with Falcon, there's just not that much more launches for them to eat up.

 

This is all a very long winded way of saying that the ability for SpaceX to grow substantially rests on their ability to grow the whole market for orbital launches. Their business model relies on them being so successful at making launches cheaper, that they end up with more to do. I think Starlink is primarily there for that reason. There simply isn't sufficient demand for their rockets, so they're building the demand themselves. Again, this could work out, and they could be worth many times what they are now, but it's an odd industry they're in, so I would be hesitant to give them my $200M.

 

4 minutes ago, Comet said:

Those are definitely risky ventures, but it seems that their standard business of firing satellites for other state entities and companies is still their bread and butter (and will be for a while regardless of their Starlink stuff). 

I could be wrong, but I think I recall Elon has himself saying that financial viability of SpaceX relied on Starship's success. We don't have great info on their financials, and certainly he's one prone to hyperbole, but it wouldn't shock me if that's actually the case. If the business model was "get a nice slice of the current orbital market," they've already achieved that, but as I mentioned above, they're playing a higher risk/reward game that necessitates their technological success in order to drive higher demand.

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On 1/4/2019 at 7:16 AM, mclumber1 said:

 

No doubt that Starlink (SpaceX's satellite internet system) and Starship (Super heavy lift Mars rocket) are risky bets - there is a good chance that neither is successful.  But at the same time, if they are successful, SpaceX will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, and not (just) $30 billion.  I'd actually like to see Musk sell his stake in Tesla and concentrate on SpaceX alone.  Tesla, and the electric vehicle industry in general, is at the tipping point where EVs will become common and the market will sustain itself.  Affordable space access still needs quite a bit of hand holding.  

I would like to see Tesla bought by a major car company that knows how to pump cars out so the prices of these things can come down. Fuck I feel like I am going to be 80 before these things become standard.

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3 hours ago, Snaynay1 said:

I would like to see Tesla bought by a major car company that knows how to pump cars out so the prices of these things can come down. Fuck I feel like I am going to be 80 before these things become standard.

 

Give it a couple years and one of the major manufacturers will buy the pieces of Tesla after bankruptcy.

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11 hours ago, Snaynay1 said:

I would like to see Tesla bought by a major car company that knows how to pump cars out so the prices of these things can come down. Fuck I feel like I am going to be 80 before these things become standard.

I don't want Tesla to be bought out, they just need the right CEO. I said before that I don't think Tesla could have gotten to this point without Elon and I don't think it can really succeed with him. Tesla needs to find themselves a Tim Cook that can manage the supply chain and production.

 

5 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

The big automakers are supplying the amount of EVs the market is demanding, if they were all selling out of each model year they'd be putting Tesla's production numbers to shame.

Tesla sold 191k of the 361k plug in electric vehicles sold in the US in 2018, but that's a misleading number because most of those cars are only partial electrics like the plug-in Prius Prime. If you only count full electric vehicles, Tesla sold 191k of 238k. There's a good reason that a supply constrained Tesla makes up 80% of the EV market, and it's because most of the EVs that the big automakers are putting out are terrible. Why would you want a e-Golf that starts at $32k and only gets 125 miles of range? The Leaf had a big headstart in cheaper EVs, but the newest versions still only get 150 miles (though I hear the next gen will be improved.) The Bolt EV is better at 240 miles, but it starts at $36k and feels like a plastic toy, both to drive and on the inside.

 

We're only starting to see real competitors make it to market. The Jaguar i-Pace EV has gotten good marks all around, and I expect the new Porsche Taycan to compete with the Model S once it debuts.

 

Right now Tesla is almost their own market, and they're consistently failing to meet demand. We'll see that change in the next couple years, but for now I think it's hard to argue that the established brands are meeting demand.

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13 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I don't want Tesla to be bought out, they just need the right CEO. I said before that I don't think Tesla could have gotten to this point without Elon and I don't think it can really succeed with him. Tesla needs to find themselves a Tim Cook that can manage the supply chain and production.

 

Tesla sold 191k of the 361k plug in electric vehicles sold in the US in 2018, but that's a misleading number because most of those cars are only partial electrics like the plug-in Prius Prime. If you only count full electric vehicles, Tesla sold 191k of 238k. There's a good reason that a supply constrained Tesla makes up 80% of the EV market, and it's because most of the EVs that the big automakers are putting out are terrible. Why would you want a e-Golf that starts at $32k and only gets 125 miles of range? The Leaf had a big headstart in cheaper EVs, but the newest versions still only get 150 miles (though I hear the next gen will be improved.) The Bolt EV is better at 240 miles, but it starts at $36k and feels like a plastic toy, both to drive and on the inside.

 

We're only starting to see real competitors make it to market. The Jaguar i-Pace EV has gotten good marks all around, and I expect the new Porsche Taycan to compete with the Model S once it debuts.

 

Right now Tesla is almost their own market, and they're consistently failing to meet demand. We'll see that change in the next couple years, but for now I think it's hard to argue that the established brands are meeting demand.

EVs don't have mass market appeal outside of the high end is the problem, which is why the hybrid electrics are getting much more attention from the large automakers, because people get to drive to work and back and still go out of town.

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2 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

EVs don't have mass market appeal outside of the high end is the problem, which is why the hybrid electrics are getting much more attention from the large automakers.

No one makes a good mass market priced EV =/= EVs have no mass market appeal.

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6 hours ago, PaladinSolo said:

The big automakers are supplying the amount of EVs the market is demanding, if they were all selling out of each model year they'd be putting Tesla's production numbers to shame.

This is wrong. Previously automakers were supplying only the amount of EVs needed to meet the demands of emission laws. That’s why 99% of previous EVs were crappy cars that you could only buy lease in California. 

 

Compliance Car

 

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8 minutes ago, outsida said:

This is wrong. Previously automakers were supplying only the amount of EVs needed to meet the demands of emission laws. That’s why 99% of previous EVs were crappy cars that you could only buy in California. 

 

Compliance Car

 

The idea a company has to be forced to make a car should be proof enough the demand isn't there, otherwise they'd happily pump them out.  Tesla/nissan have cornered a tiny subsection of car sales, GM makes millions of cars a year, and just axed a car cause its profits on sales were too low, and that number was over 120k cars sold, or half of the EV total market in the US. 

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3 minutes ago, PaladinSolo said:

If you want to ignore that the mileage issue isn't a massive hurdle for mass market appeal, sure.  They aren't making them because the demand just isn't there.

Of course the mileage issue is a problem, and it's possibly the biggest reason Tesla owns 80% of the EV market. Their lowest range car goes ~250 miles. Almost none of their competitors get there, with most coming in ~100 miles less. With battery production what it currently is, it's just not feasible to make a 250 mile EV at mass market prices, established supply chain or not.

 

You know what would convince me that there's no demand for a good, mass market EV? The existence of one that sells poorly. Even being as supply constrained as it was, the Model 3 was the 11th best selling car in the US last year. If you look at the monthly figures, by December they were selling as many 3s as Toyota was Corollas (the third best selling car in the US). I don't know if demand will keep up if they can't get the price down as promised, but if demand goes flat they'd end up with the 5th best selling car in the country, selling ~300k units.

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Tesla isn’t manufacturing demand they are meeting the latent demand that others ignored because it conflicted with their current source of income. 

 

This is is how companies die. They ignore the future for the now and the expedient. Blockbuster had the option of buying Netflix but Netflix’s businesses model conflict with their established business model of making profits on late fees. 

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