Korea Investment Partners Co. (KIP), one of South Korea’s largest venture capital and private equity firms, has invested $10 million in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, citing the US aerospace company’s dual growth engine of reusable rockets and its expanding Starlink satellite Internet network.
According to investment banking sources on Wednesday, KIP purchased $10 million worth of existing SpaceX shares from employees in a secondary market transaction, valuing the company at $400 billion.
The deal was split evenly between KIP’s Korea Investment Continuation Fund and its Korea Investment US Signature Fund.
Korea Investment Partners Founded by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX develops launch vehicles such as the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, which is used by commercial satellite operators and the US government.
The company’s Starlink division has deployed over 7,000 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites, serving some 5 million households worldwide.
Korea Investment Partners Earlier this year, Seoul’s Ministry of Science and ICT approved three cross-border agreements on LEO satellite communication services, including Starlink Korea LLC’s deal with parent Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, and partnerships between domestic operators Hanwha Systems Co. and KT SAT with Eutelsat, which runs OneWeb services.
KIP’S INVESTMENTS IN US PROJECTS
As an affiliate of Korea Investment Holdings, which is one of the top financial conglomerates in Korea, KIP is a leading venture capital and private equity firm with ample investment experience.
SapceX's Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites in a low-earth-orbit flight (Courtesy of SpaceX) KIP has been a steady backer of US artificial intelligence start-ups, investing about $10 million last year in Musk’s AI venture xAI, and taking stakes this year in Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI researchers, and AI cloud company Lambda.
KIP is now widening its scope beyond AI into sectors such as defense, space and healthcare.
“We will actively seek promising overseas companies,” said a company official.
Last year, the firm invested about 104.5 billion won in foreign businesses and maintains overseas offices in Silicon Valley, China and Singapore.
