Boring Company Raises $113 Million In New Capital
The Boring Company has submitted a new filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which it says it has raised $113 million from 31 investors. Bloomberg reports that 90% of the financing came from Musk himself and the rest from early employees of the Boring Co., according to the filing. No venture capitalists or outside investors participated. CNN Money reports $100 million of the new funding came from Musk’s personal resources.
This is the first time the one-year-old company has raised money to support its operations. Presumably, Musk has been funding everything out of his rather deep personal pockets up to this point. The Boring Company popped into Elon Musk’s rather prolific brain one day while fighting Los Angeles traffic on the way to the airport.
Digging tunnels under an existing right of way in California would allow The Boring Company to complete an LA to SF link for about ¼ the cost of the proposed high-speed rail project, according to company estimates. In February, Musk stirred the pot even more by tweeting that The Boring Company could complete a new Transbay Tube from San Francisco to the East Bay for ⅒ of the cost of a second cross-bay tube proposed by BART and do it in ⅕ of the time.
The Boring Co. says it was founded to “solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic.” The company website says it is pursing projects in Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Baltimore-Washington area. Last month, the company released details of the proposed route between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. In order to save on land acquisition costs, the tunnels will follow the route of the existing Baltimore-Washington Expressway. That right of way is owned by a combination of state, local, and federal government agencies.
On sister site Planetsave, James Ayre offers some additional useful perspective and commentary on coverage of this company:
“Something worth noting here, before going any further, is that most of the coverage on this subject that I’ve seen out there in the media seems to reference the hyperloop system as the driver behind The Boring Co. The reality, though, is that Musk’s plans seem to involve self-driving shuttle systems utilizing the underground tunnels alongside regular vehicles (though with preferential access over such regular vehicles). The hyperloop concept, conversely, seems to be mostly in the hands of third parties at this point.”
Check out our archives on The Boring Company and various hyperloop companies for much more background on these topics.
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