- Boring Company closed a new round at a $20B valuation, undisclosed amount raised.
- Some investors must recruit staff or open government doors, or lose their shares.
- The deal rides the same investor appetite that carried SpaceX’s record $85.7B IPO.
For most startups, investors write a check and wait for the company to turn it into growth. For Elon Musk’s Boring Company, some of them are apparently expected to do more: recruit staff, open doors with local officials, or risk losing their shares.
The tunnelling company has closed a new funding round at a valuation of around $20 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported, though the total amount raised has not been disclosed. Some investors who took part were told they would need to help fill open roles at the company or make introductions to government officials in cities where it wants to build. Those who can’t deliver risk having some of their shares bought back.
It’s an unusual clause for a private financing round, but it says something about the business Boring Company is in. Success there depends as much on navigating city halls and permitting offices as it does on the tunnelling technology itself.
An unusual price of entry
Tech Funding News reported in July that Boring Company was in talks to raise $4 billion at a $20 billion valuation, a figure that would nearly quadruple its $5.7 billion valuation from its 2022 Series C round.
The WSJ’s latest report confirms the financing has now closed around that valuation, though the final size and investor list remain undisclosed, so the $20 billion figure describes what the company is worth,.
For an investor, an introduction to the right city official can be worth as much as an extra check. Before a single machine starts digging, Boring Company needs land access, planning permission and agreements with public authorities.
That gives Musk room to ask investors for more than capital, and his ability to raise money across his companies gives him leverage few founders have.
From Vegas to Dubai
Boring Company spun out of SpaceX in 2018, after Musk began exploring tunnels as a way to cut urban congestion. Its flagship project, the Las Vegas Loop, moves passengers between stations in Tesla vehicles under the Strip. That project gave the company a controlled environment to prove the concept works.
Nashville and Dubai are the real test. The company is building an underground Loop in Nashville at its own expense, and in Dubai it’s begun a multi-phase tunnel project with RTA, starting with a four-mile pilot phase costing an estimated $154 million, before an eventual expansion to 14 miles.
Unlike Vegas, both projects require the company to prove it can repeat its model somewhere new, and turn plans into working infrastructure on someone else’s terms.
Riding the Musk halo
Tunnel construction is not a normal software business. Before a machine starts digging, companies need land access, planning permissions, regulatory approvals and agreements with public authorities. Winning those approvals can determine whether a project progresses at all.
For The Boring Company, therefore, an investor who can introduce the company to the right official could potentially be as useful as an investor bringing additional capital. That also explains why Musk can ask investors to do more than simply provide funding.
His ability to attract capital across his companies gives him considerable leverage in private markets. Investors seeking exposure to Musk’s ecosystem may be willing to accept terms that would be unusual elsewhere.
The Musk halo
The timing lines up with a run of investor enthusiasm around Musk’s other companies. Tech Funding News covered SpaceX’s record $85.7 billion IPO in June, and its $20 billion investment-grade bond sale that followed days later.
But Boring Company isn’t SpaceX. It has no public share price to set a daily value, no Tesla-style quarterly disclosures, and its growth depends on physical construction that can take years to secure, permit and build.
The new valuation gives it more capital to work with, but it also raises the bar: the company still has to show that Las Vegas can be a repeatable blueprint rather than a one-off, and that Nashville and Dubai can move from signed agreements to tunnels people actually ride.
Whether investors are backing today’s Vegas Loop or Musk’s broader vision for underground transit will only become clear once those projects are finished, and once we learn who actually put money in.
