As a spectator of the Space Industry since 2020, Starlink has been all the rage for quite a while. The amount of Starlink launches has been very impressive and highly covered throughout online Space Media. Although the business side of Starlink has seen limited coverage. The time to analyze the potential for Starlink’s IPO or SPAC offerings is now due to major achievements SpaceX has made.
When is Starlink going Public?
Elon Musk has long discussed spinning off Starlink from SpaceX in an IPO or SPAC offering, even starting this discussion in 2019. Since then, there has not been any action towards taking Starlink to a public stock offering. In 2022 Elon Musk told Employees that it was unlikely for a spin-off of Starlink to occur for at least another 3 or 4 years. Although predictions and promises from Elon Musk are known to be very bad at hitting timelines, I believe it’s time to start looking for an IPO from SpaceX.
Starlink Smooth Sailing Towards IPO
Recently in May of this year SpaceNews reported that revenue from Starlink outpaced Launch Services revenue for SpaceX. For many like me, this is a surprise coming from SpaceX. And could very well be an indicator of Starlink becoming publicly tradable on the stock market in the near future. The initial indicator of when Starlink would be ready for public trading was for Starlink to be in a “smooth sailing situation” as said by CEO Elon Musk. With infrastructure continuing to be built out in the Starlink constellation, SpaceX has decided not to go public with Starlink quite yet. But now with Starlink revenue exceeding launch services revenue, Starlink is very much in a “smooth sailing situation”.
Starlink Stock Evaluation
Predicting an exact date for when Starlink will launch as an IPO will be impossible. But we can evaluate the overall valuation of the company which will impact the stock price it will launch at. Recent funding rounds of SpaceX have boosted the evaluation that Starlink might launch. This summer SpaceX hit a $400 Billion evaluation with a funding round per Bloomberg. Starlink by itself as an IPO could be evaluated as high as $175 Billion or more.
How to Buy Now!
Starlink is most likely to be listed on the NASDAQ when brought to the public. I believe this to be true due to technology heavy emphasis on NASDAQ, and Elon Musk’s other publicly traded company Tesla being listed on NASDAQ. While you cannot currently publicly purchase stock of Starlink or even SpaceX, there are ways to privately acquire ownership in SpaceX. For retail investors, AKA the average person who is not a professional trader, the ARK investment fund from Cathie Wood is the most common way to acquire a portion of SpaceX stock. Some platforms also offer secondary market sales of stocks such as SpaceX. Examples of these platforms include Forge Global, Hiive, and EquityZen. Hiive currently has SpaceX stock at a price of around $255 per share.
Starlink IPO Key Points
A public stock offering for Starlink can be expected in 2025 or 2026, although it is very difficult to predict timelines or even if SpaceX decides to go public. Signs towards a public offering are consistent revenue, infrastructure improvements, and previous promises from Elon Musk. If you do not want to wait for a public offering, you can buy SpaceX stock on secondary markets currently. I believe that a public offering for Starlink would be great for SpaceX and bring in new cash that is needed for their Starship program, and continuation of the Starlink constellation.
In Summary…
- The date for Starlink IPO is impossible to predict, but steady revenue shows good signs for an upcoming IPO.
- Starlink brought in an estimated $11.8 billion in revenue last year via NovaSpace.
- Starlink could launch with a market cap as high as $175 Billion.
- Starlink is most likely to launch on the NASDAQ.
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