Elon Musk’s Boring Company raises $675M to scale Loop projects – TechCrunch

The Boring Firm, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s venture to construct underground highways to alleviate site visitors congestion, has raised a $675 million Collection C spherical, bringing its valuation as much as $5.7 billion.

The spherical was led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Valor Fairness Companions, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures, and DFJ Progress. The corporate says it can use the funds to considerably improve hiring throughout engineering, operations and manufacturing with a view to construct and scale Loop initiatives and speed up the analysis and improvement of Prufrock, the corporate’s subsequent era tunnelling machine.

In October, The Boring Firm (TBC) obtained preliminary approval to construct a transportation system that may shuttle passengers in Tesla automobiles through a community of tunnels below Las Vegas past its present 1.7 mile footprint that at present connects the Las Vegas Conference Middle (LVCC) campus to a 29-mile route that may hit all the very best vacationer spots within the metropolis of sin. Operation on the up to date Vegas loop ought to start this 12 months, in line with the corporate.

Whereas the announcement hints at different Loop initiatives within the works, TBC has not but said whether or not it’s pursuing different initiatives. Nonetheless, the corporate does point out that with elevated boring velocity, this kind of transportation structure will be utilized to inter-city, or what TBC refers to as Hyperloop.

That’s the place enhancements to Prufrock are available, an automatic mining machine that may tunnel repeatedly and with out people on the bottom within the tunnels. The present iteration, Prufrock-2, can mine at 1 mile per week, in accordance TBC. The corporate boasts {that a} tunnel the size of the Vegas Strip, which is about 4 miles, will be accomplished in a month.

The subsequent era, Prufrock-3, is designed to tunnel at seven miles per day.

“Within the quick time period, if every Prufrock-2 mines at 1 mile/week, and TBC produces 1 new Prufrock machine monthly, then TBC will likely be introducing 600 miles/12 months of capability,” the corporate stated in a press release. “As some extent of reference, lower than 20 miles of underground subway tunnel has been constructed in the US within the final 20 years.”