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The guy who built SpaceX\u2019s engines has thoughts on its IPO.<\/p>\n
Tom Mueller was employee No. 1 at SpaceX. He built the engines behind the Falcon 9 rocket that rewrote the economics of getting to orbit. Now, he runs Impulse Space, valued at $4.26 billion, which designs and manufactures space vehicles that move satellites from one orbit to another. So, when SpaceX filed for its IPO, Mueller had more skin in the game than most.<\/p>\n
His reaction when the S-1 dropped? \u201cFinally.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, Musk was vocally hostile to the idea of taking SpaceX public. He\u2019d lived through the whiplash of Tesla\u2019s public market journey and made no secret of his preference for the freedom of staying private. But SpaceX\u2019s ambitions have outgrown its balance sheet. The company is targeting 555.6 million shares at $135 each\u2014a $75 billion raise that would be the largest IPO in history. At that price, the company is valued at roughly $1.75 trillion.<\/p>\n
Mueller told me that valuation \u201cseems incredible\u201d\u2014and he meant it somewhat literally. SpaceX posted $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue with a $4.9 billion net loss, driven by nearly doubled capital expenditures of $20.7 billion, much of it going into AI development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to understand what Elon\u2019s selling,\u201d he told me. The valuation is actually a bet on compute and data centers moving to space and that Musk has the vertically-integrated stack to make that happen: Musk has cheap rockets to get hardware into orbit, Starlink has already proven you can run serious computing power in space (the satellite internet business alone generated $11.39 billion in 2025 revenue). And between xAI\u2019s Grok, Tesla\u2019s robotics, and X, he\u2019s sitting on more data to train AI models than almost anyone on the planet. \u201cHe has all the pieces,\u201d Mueller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Doubting that thesis, Mueller explained, requires you to ignore SpaceX\u2019s entire track record: Falcon 1, Falcon 9, crewed missions to the ISS, Starlink itself\u2014every single one of those had a chorus of naysayers. \u201cAre we still betting against Elon?\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for the trajectory of how the stock will perform, Mueller compared it to riding Tesla from IPO through years of delays before the stock eventually took off. His prediction: a high opening, a \u201cvalley of death\u201d when schedule slips become public-market problems, and then\u2014probably\u2014a recovery. The difference, of course, is that being late is a lot more forgiving when you don\u2019t have quarterly earnings calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The way Mueller sees it, SpaceX going public doesn\u2019t just validate the space sector. It accelerates the timeline toward what he\u2019s been working toward since he was a kid watching Star Trek: a true space economy, then megastructures built from lunar and asteroid resources, then outward. Next, Impulse is launching spacecraft Helios with a 2027 target.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going long,\u201d he said\u2014and he wasn\u2019t talking about the stock.<\/p>\n
SpaceX and the secondaries Wild West\u2026<\/strong> Allie here, just back from Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. I stuck my head up yesterday to publish this explainer I feel very strongly about: SpaceX IPO today marks the beginning of a reckoning in the venture secondaries market. For anyone who bought pre-IPO shares of SpaceX through SPVs, the moment of truth is coming: What do you actually own? While you\u2019re waiting to see that stock price, read the whole story here.<\/p>\n See you next week,<\/p>\n Lily Mae Lazarus Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter.<\/em> Subscribe here.<\/p>\n – <\/span>THEKER<\/b>, a Barcelona, Spain-based AI robotics company focused on industrial automation, raised $85 million in Series A funding. <\/span>CRV<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Samsung<\/b>, <\/span>LVMH<\/b>, <\/span>Cathay<\/b> Innovation<\/b>, <\/span>20VC<\/b>, and others.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Current<\/b>, a New York City-based consumer fintech company, raised $80 million in Series E funding. <\/span>Springcoast<\/b> Partners<\/b> led the round.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Endurance<\/b> Energy<\/b>, a Seattle, Wash.-based energy company developing subsea geothermal power systems, raised $54 million in Series A funding. <\/span>Founders<\/b> Fund<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Felicis<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Voyager<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Riot<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, <\/span>Construct<\/b> Capital<\/b>, <\/span>Point72<\/b> Ventures<\/b>, and <\/span>First<\/b> Round<\/b> Capital<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Hypha<\/b>, a New York City-based AI-native asset intelligence platform designed to modernize private credit and private equity workflows, raised $50 million in seed funding. <\/span>TriEdge<\/b> Investments<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>Bankwell<\/b>, <\/span>Cammeby\u2019s<\/b> International<\/b>, <\/span>CFG<\/b> Bank<\/b>, and others.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Coram<\/b> AI<\/b>, a San Francisco-based AI-native physical security platform that turns existing security cameras into video intelligence for safety and operations teams, raised $35 million in Series B funding. <\/span>Ansa<\/b> Capital<\/b> and <\/span>Battery<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and were joined by <\/span>UP.Partners<\/b>, <\/span>8VC<\/b>, and <\/span>Mosaic<\/b> Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Dapple<\/b>, a New York City-based operating system for AI infrastructure, raised $30 million in seed funding. <\/span>The<\/b> Raptor<\/b> Group<\/b> and<\/span> Ion<\/b> Pacific<\/b> led the round.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Sandstone<\/b>, a New York City-based operating system for in-house legal teams that uses AI agents to automate contract and matter workflows, raised $30 million in Series A funding. <\/span>Lightspeed<\/b> led the round.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Earlytrade<\/b>, a Denver, Colo.-based fintech platform for the construction industry, raised $25 million in Series A funding. <\/span>S3 Ventures<\/b> and <\/span>Brick & Mortar<\/b> Ventures<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Upriver<\/b>, a San Francisco-based AI-native data engineering platform, raised $14 million in seed funding. <\/span>Valley<\/b> Capital<\/b> Partners<\/b> and <\/span>Hetz<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Artis<\/b>, an Austin, Texas-based brand partner that handles marketing and brand strategy for residential architects, raised $7.3 million in seed funding. <\/span>LiveOak<\/b> Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by <\/span>mark<\/b> vc<\/b> and <\/span>Capital<\/b> Factory<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Akeneo<\/b>, backed by <\/span>Summit<\/b> Partners<\/b>, acquired <\/span>PricingHUB<\/b>, a Paris, France-based AI-driven pricing management platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>AMPAM<\/b> Parks<\/b>, a portfolio company of <\/span>Gemspring<\/b> Capital<\/b>, acquired <\/span>Coastal Fire & Integration Systems<\/b>, a Poway, Calif.-based provider of fire protection, low-voltage, and life safety systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Stonepeak<\/b> and <\/span>Energy<\/b> Equation<\/b> Partners<\/b> agreed to acquire <\/span>Anwim<\/b>, a Warsaw, Poland-based fuel retailer. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n – <\/span>Motive<\/b> Partners<\/b> acquired <\/span>Mobius<\/b>, a London, U.K.-based pension investment platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #SpaceXs #employee #Tom #Mueller #thinks #historic #IPO #beginning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The guy who built SpaceX\u2019s engines has thoughts on its IPO. Tom Mueller was employee No. 1 at SpaceX. He built the engines behind the Falcon 9 rocket that rewrote… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9199,3793,1037,743,1255,2164,2040,2400,5458,9331,8551,8513,1843,5557,5566,963,2723,3301,5143,568,5459],"class_list":["post-6953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-aerospace-and-defense","tag-beginning","tag-data-centers","tag-elon-musk","tag-employee","tag-historic","tag-ipo","tag-ipos","tag-mars","tag-mueller","tag-rockets","tag-space-exploration","tag-spacex","tag-spacexs","tag-starlink","tag-term-sheet","tag-tesla","tag-thinks","tag-tom","tag-venture-capital","tag-x"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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