Blue Origin may need external funding to meet its ambitious goals

He said that the company should be “prepared for foreign investment” and was confident of strong interest from foreign investors.

Bezos, who founded Blue Origin in 2000, is the company’s sole shareholder and its main source of funding. He’s heavily used sales of Amazon stock — he owns about 9 percent of the group, according to proxy filings — to support the rocket maker.

Blue Origin is spending heavily on operations including building an 800,000 sq ft manufacturing facility and a second launch site in Florida. It is also investing in testing and maintenance of its rocket booster and upper orbital module.

The company is expected to spend $4.8 billion this year, according to analysts at Capstone, a Washington research firm. It is estimated that the group has spent about $28 billion since its inception.

Josh Parker, an analyst at Capstone, said Blue Origin faced significant cost increases in recent years when it built New Glenn “at a very high altitude.” He said the competition for talent with SpaceX has also forced wages.

Limp, a former Amazon executive who will oversee Blue Origin until the end of 2023, told employees that he did not expect Bezos to sell the business. He did not rule out a possible IPO in the future, the people added.

A Blue Origin executive in April said the group plans to launch between eight and 12 launches this year with New Glenn. The goal of the 14 initiatives has already been shared with internal staff.

He said the group had a long-term goal of hitting 100 launches a year, and a big part of that was expected to help develop its TeraWave satellite communications system for business customers.

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