The start-up, founded in 2016 by the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, aims to revolutionize urban transport.
The start-up The Boring Company, founded by Elon Musk and specializing in the construction of tunnels in large cities, announced that it has raised $ 675 million, bringing its valuation to $ 5.675 billion.
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The money raised will be used to recruit employees in engineering, operations and manufacturing departments, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. †Then consider working at The Boring Company!Elon Musk tweeted Thursday to his nearly 83 million subscribers.Our goal is to solve the problem of traffic congestion that plagues all major cities on Earth.†
Investment funds Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital led this round, which was attended by Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures and DFJ Growth. The Boring Company has indicated that it wants to develop its Loop project, “a fully electric, zero-emission, high-speed underground public transport system that transports passengers to their destinations without intermediate stops†
Target 57,000 passengers per hour
After receiving approval from local authorities last year, the start-up is developing a network of 29 miles (47 kilometers) of tunnels to connect 51 stations in Las Vegas, Nevada. The goal is to achieve a throughput of 57,000 passengers per hour. For now, The Boring Company’s main metro in Las Vegas connects several buildings of the city’s main exhibition center that hosts the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the annual high mass of electronics. In January, videos circulated on social networks showing Teslas standing still during a demonstration at CES because of traffic jams in this tunnel.
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The start-up of Elon Musk also completed construction of a tunnel in Hawthorne, near Los Angeles, California, at the end of 2018, which is used for research and development purposes. A test track has also been built in Hawthorne where self-propelled capsules can reach speeds of more than 965 km/h.
The Boring Company also says it is working on its tunnel boring machines, called “prfrock“, which should allow”build mega-infrastructure in weeks instead of years and at a much lower cost†
The start-up, founded in 2016 by the boss of Tesla and SpaceX, aims to revolutionize urban transport. Elon Musk suggested that the vehicles could travel at 150 miles per hour (241 km/h). At this time, the speed limit allowed by local authorities in the Las Vegas tunnel is significantly lower.
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