Blue Origin Is Raising Cash at a Big Valuation—But Space Stocks Continue to Struggle Post-SpaceX IPO

Blue Origin is reportedly nearing the end of a fundraising round that values the rocket launch company and SpaceX competitor at $130 billion. SpaceX’s record-shattering IPO last month has caused investor interest in the space economy to boom, though space stocks have cooled off since SpaceX’s debut marked the end of a big pre-IPO run-up. Big investors just put a pile of money into Jeff Bezos’ rocket company. Shouldn’t that be good for space stocks? So far, it hasn’t been. Blue Origin, founded by the former Amazon chief, is raising money from outside investors for the first time at a $130 billion valuation, according to the New York Times. The funding round ranks Blue Origin among America’s most valuable private tech companies, behind only Anthropic, OpenAI, payments provider Stripe, and data analytics company Databricks, according to Pitchbook. In keeping with the recent trend of companies staying private for longer—and getting bigger as they do—the valuation exceeds those of public companies with household names including Starbucks (SBUX) and Lowe’s (LOW), both worth about $120 billion. But Blue Origin’s big price tag didn’t do much to revive investor appetite for space-themed shares on Wednesday. The Tema Space Innovators ETF (NASA) was down about 1.5% in recent trading. Shares of Rocket Lab (RKLB), one of the fund’s largest components, fell more than 2% after tumbling 10% yesterday. Why This Is Important Rocket launch and satellite companies were thrust into the spotlight when SpaceX filed to go public earlier this year. Their stocks have been volatile in the months since, rising and falling with investor appetite to take the risk of investing in the nascent space economy. Investor interest in space surged this year in l...