By Tom Maloney.
Image: Amazon.
Blue Origin’s $140 billion valuation from its latest funding round has boosted Jeff Bezos fortune by $87 billion, making him the second-richest person in the world.
Bezos’s wealth now stands at $368.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, moving him ahead of Alphabet Inc co-founder Larry Page and behind only Elon Musk at $1.02 trillion.
Investor enthusiasm for space companies has been the main driver of both Bezos’s and Musk’s fortunes this year.
Musk, 55, became a trillionaire following SpaceX’s initial public offering in June. Even with a pullback in the company’s shares, Musk has added $405 billion to his fortune this year.
Bezos, 62, incorporated Washington-based Blue Origin in 2000, about two years before Musk’s founding of SpaceX.
And while SpaceX has long relied on outside investors to fuel its growth, the latest funding round marks the first time Blue Origin has raised outside equity capital.
Bezos didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Coatue Management is the only new investor identified in the funding round with a roughly $4 billion contribution, according to data from Pitchbook. Bezos has invested in Coatue funds.
Following the round, Bezos owns 93% of the company, according to the wealth index, while Musk owns about 35% of SpaceX, excluding options and restricted shares.
SpaceX remains significantly larger.
It generated nearly $18.7 billion in revenue last year, compared with about $800 million for Blue Origin, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. SpaceX has a market capitalisation of about $2.23 trillion.
The companies compete in several areas, including orbital launch and lunar transportation.
Bloomberg had previously valued Bezos’s Blue Origin stake at $17 billion, based on estimates of the amount he had invested in the company. The Wall Street Journal reported that Bezos invested about $30 billion since founding Blue Origin, including $2 billion in the latest funding round.