SpaceX raises $350mn; valuation zooms to $21 billion

The space exploration outfit led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, recently raised another $350 million, which brought the company's value to $21 billion, according to Equidate, which operates a marketplace for investing in private companies. The New York Times had reported the new valuation earlier.

SpaceX figures in the list of exclusive group of private US-based companies that had multi-billion dollar valuations. Currently, only about half a dozen companies in the world had hit the $20-billion mark, according to CBInsights, a startup analytics firm.

The list also included the world's highest-valued private firm, Uber, with  estimated worth of nearly $70 billion, and Airbnb, which was worth $30 billion.

While Uber, Airbnb and other so-called "unicorns" were focused on more traditional marketplaces - SpaceX's aimed to put humans on Mars.

Rocket manufacturing had long been the exclusive preserve of governments and massive legacy aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin's United Launch Alliance, which partnered with governments. The general consensus had been that space exploration is too risky and rocket building too expensive for the private sector.

According to Equidate, a marketplace for trading private tech company stocks, SpaceX's price per share is now $135, up from $96.42 prior to the new funding round.

SpaceX is known mostly for its space exploration plans and for launching satellites into space. SpaceX is also a US government contractor. Space X has been very active this summer, completing two satellite launches in one weekend in June.

However, last week, Musk suggested that SpaceX would not land Dragon capsules on Mars, but rather planned to land on Mars with a bigger ship in the future.

This new valuation comes even as Musk's other venture, Tesla, is gearing up for the launch of Model 3 tomorrow evening.