SpaceX remains the front and center of all financial debates ahead of its “much-anticipated” initial public offering (IPO) on June 12th at a valuation of a whopping $1.7 trillion plus.
For many, the valuation itself screams “caution”; after all, this AI and infrastructure firm is seeking to raise about $75 billion via the offering – well over double the Saudi Aramco number.
Plus, SpaceX generated about $18.7 billion in revenue last year but remained loss-making, with recent losses heavily tied to its capital-hungry xAI unit.
Yet, others view SpaceX IPO as a bet on the future of compute and connectivity – and that multi-billion dollar loss as the price of burning the present to buy the future.
Among those is Justin Fishner-Wolfson, the founder and managing partner at 137 Ventures.
“If you look at the history of the business, they’ve always delivered” – that’s a simple reason why he has invested in SpaceX for about 20 years and expects the next 20 to be “even crazier”.
Fishner-Wolfson is bullish on xAI
In a recent CNBC interview, Fishner-Wolfson touted Starlink as the “largest constellation anyone’s ever operated in space.”
But the financial markets expert is just as bullish on the xAI business that’s often criticized as the segment that turned SpaceX from a very profitable giant into a money-losing company.
And yes, building data centers in space and that too within two to three years sure is ambitious, as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos admitted recently, but SpaceX is exceptionally “adept” at navigating the technical challenges, the 137 Ventures’ founder noted.
“No one thought they could build a reusable rocket with Falcon 9. There were people saying two weeks before they landed the booster that it would never work. Then they landed the booster.”
xAI aims at solving key AI bottlenecks
Fishner-Wolfson is bullish on xAI as moving data centers into orbit addresses some of the most punishing infrastructure bottlenecks currently facing the artificial intelligence industry on Earth.
By launching these facilities into space, companies can tap into a virtually infinite supply of solar power and utilize the naturally frigid environment of space to solve the massive cooling challenges that plague terrestrial facilities.
Furthermore, SpaceX already possesses a built-in infrastructure advantage: its Starlink satellite network is perfectly positioned to serve as the communication backbone needed to beam data back to Earth.
Ultimately, Fishner-Wolfson argues that it is far more efficient to transmit digital bits across space than it is to transmit raw electrical power on Earth, giving space-based compute a monumental long-term advantage.
Bottom line
While the technical and financial hurdles of space-based data centers are undeniably massive, SpaceX’s track record of defying skeptics keeps investors like Fishner-Wolfson incredibly optimistic.
If the company successfully leverages Starlink to conquer the AI power crisis, this historic $1.7 trillion IPO won’t just be a high-stakes gamble – it will mark the definitive dawn of a new, orbital tech economy.
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