If you look through the human history, you’ll see how we are always moving past things. No matter how effective it might be, we always run with the chance of something better. This sets us up for significant progression over time, but hold on a second, the whole process isn’t that easy. There are times when you don’t find anything better, and that can set a downbeat tone for many of the following journeys. Hence, to make it a little easier and give ourselves the best possible shot at success, the world will bring technology into the fold. The move ended up transforming our identity altogether. You see, for the first ever, we had like a gazillion routes through which we could pursue sustainable growth, except of course, it didn’t mean we were going to stop looking for more. By keeping technology at the very heart this time, we’ll discover new growth avenues more frequently than we ever did before. In fact, a recent funding should only add to the said picture.
Elon Musk-owned, The Boring Company has successfully raised over $675 million in Series C financing, taking the company’s valuation to a whopping $5.7 billion. Led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital, the round saw various other investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures, DFJ Growth, and more, throwing their hat in the ring. According to certain reports, The Boring Company plans on dedicating the newly-raised cash towards an extensive recruitment drive, which will bolster the headcount of its engineering, operations, and production teams. Through an expanded workforce, the company hopes to build and scale Loop projects. Apart from that, it is looking to accelerate research and development of Prufrock, the company’s next generation automated tunnelling machine.
While TBC already has the go-ahead to build a transportation system, which is purposed around shuttling passengers in the underground realm of Las Vegas, the expansion plans do everything to indicate more projects in its pipeline. In case that didn’t drop any hints, TBC’s vision for Prufrock should definitely do it.
“In the short term, if each Prufrock-2 mines at 1 mile/week, and TBC produces 1 new Prufrock machine per month, then TBC will be introducing 600 miles/year of capacity,” the company said in a statement. “As a point of reference, less than 20 miles of underground subway tunnel has been constructed in the United States in the last 20 years.”
Beyond production capacity, TBC is also working on a whole new Prufrock 3. This new version will reportedly have the capabilities to tunnel at 7/miles a week, a number that seems dramatically higher than what it’s working with right now. After receiving approvals in Las Vegas and San Bernardino, The Boring Company is now hunting for tunnels in Austin, City of Kyle, San Antonio, and some other cities.