Virgin Galactic has said that it may sell up to $500m of shares after completing a successful space trip on Sunday, July 11th. The company said it plans to use the cash raised to develop its spaceship fleet and infrastructure in a filing. On Sunday, July 11th, Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s Founder, reached the edge of space on one of the planes it has been developing for the past 17 years.
He called the trip the ‘experience of a lifetime’ after returning to Earth just over an hour after leaving the ground. The trip also made the entrepreneur the first of the new space tourism pioneers to try out their shuttles, beating Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
Virgin Galactic shares rose 8% before markets opened in the US on Monday, July 12th. But they had decreased 17% by the end of the day after the sale of its shares was announced. Sir Richard and his Virgin Group currently hold a 24% stake in the company. According to the Wall Street Journal Reports, some 600 individuals have already paid deposits for tickets that will cost them up to $250,000 – including Elon Musk, Founder of SpaceX and Tesla.
