Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is raising about $10 billion, in its first outside funding round that will value the rocket company at $130 billion, sources told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Bezos is set to contribute $2 billion into the round, along with about $4 billion from hedge fund Coatue Management, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the details are private.
The remaining $4 billion has seen significant demand, with several major investors expected to participate, the people said.
The funding round comes hot on the heels of a blockbuster IPO by Elon Musk’s SpaceX last month. SpaceX raised nearly $86 billion, including the underwriters’ option, making it the largest IPO on record and minting Musk a trillionaire. The company is now valued at about $2 trillion.
Bezos told CNBC in May that the company was “considering” outside investment, but it had not happened yet.
“It’s a good time, actually, to start thinking about the future and bring on some other outside investors,” he said.
Bezos, who founded Amazon and stepped down as its CEO in 2021, has turned more of his attention to Blue Origin, which he founded in 2000. It competes in many of the same markets as SpaceX, including heavy-lift rockets, lunar landers and satellite internet, though Musk has a significant lead in several of those areas.
Bezos has in the past funded Blue Origin solely through sales of his Amazon stock. In 2024, Bezos said he believed Blue Origin will one day be a bigger company than Amazon.
Blue Origin suffered a setback in late May when one of its New Glenn rockets exploded on a Florida launchpad during a static hot-fire test. The company is in the process of reconstructing the damaged pad and determining the root cause of the anomaly.
Bezos and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp have set an aggressive goal to return New Glenn to flight by the end of 2026. The rocket is key to Blue Origin’s upcoming missions for NASA, as well as customers like Amazon and AST SpaceMobile.
