SpaceX has raised $337.4 million in equity financing, the company announced in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

The investment is part of the rocket company’s push to raise more money for both its satellite internet, Starlink and rocket transport services. SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in June that Starlink will need as much as $30 billion to execute its satellite tasks and steer the company to a profitable business.

In October, SPaceX hit $100 billion in valuation after a secondary share sale. The latest funding round is a major revenue boost to the space company, which has been competing with Amazon’s Blue Origin and billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic in the space industry.

The burgeoning constellation and space travels have seen an uptick in the number of investors. Google’s parent company, Alphabet and Fidelity Investments are among companies who have bet their money on SpaceX.

Earlier in the year, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin joined SpaceX in launching successful civilian trips to space, kicking off the multi-billion dollar commercial rocket industry. The space economy is estimated to be worth $1 trillion by 2040, according to Morgan Stanley.

Each of the companies have been competing to grab enough share of the estimated economy. In October, Blue Origin and Sierra Space announced plans for Orbital Reef, a “commercially developed, owned, and operated space station” that will be built in low Earth orbit. The station will start operating in the second half of this decade.

The idea is backed by space industry leaders and teammates including Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering Solutions, and Arizona State University; and is expected to open multiple new markets in space.

SpaceX on the other hand, is planning to launch its Starship rockets, which is designed to put as many civilians as possible on Mars, before 2030. Musk’s company still leads others, having launched numerous cargo payloads and astronauts into orbit. It has been the first choice of the U.S. ‘s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in space transport and contracts.

SpaceX is the only company among the three offering orbital services, which is key to many of the contracts it has won from NASA.

While the companies are carving out a niche, luxury space trips, which is rapidly becoming a thing, remains key to the space industry’s economy. The cost of trips per a seat to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is typically $250,000 to $500,000. This is because they are suborbital transport systems – 15-minute rides from the earth.

For SpaceX’s orbital transport, the cost starts from $50 million. This price per seat is considered cheap because NASA used to pay Russia nearly $90 million per seat on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The reasons why you should get a Prenup

DRE PAYS $100 MIL TO NICOLE IN DIVORCE SETTLEMENT: Nicole Young is getting a fraction of Dr Dre’s estate. Dre and Nicole just filed their property settlement agreement, in which Dre agreed to pay Young $100 million. (Source: TMZ News, 29 Dec., 2021)

A London judge ordered Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to pay his estranged wife Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein. Dubai’s ruler was ordered to provide his estranged wife and their children at least 554 million pounds ($734 million) in the largest financial award the U.K. family courts have ever seen. (Source: Aljazeera News, 21 Dec., 2021)

These are some of the recent divorce cashout and payments that were reported in the news because those involved are celebrities and public figures. This goes to show how expensive divorces and judicial separations could be as it can get more expensive especially for the richer spouse who can either be the lady or the man but in most instances it’s always the man.

These huge sums are payments that the court orders a spouse to pay the other partner and it is called “alimony”. Alimony is financial support that a person is ordered by a court to give to their spouse during separation or following divorce for maintenance and taking care of kids, it is generally for spousal support. 

Due to these payments of alimony ordered by the court which is usually huge and sometimes it can be half of the wealth of the spouse or even more than as it is whatever amount of the court deemed to be fair and equitable to be granted to the other spouse, People have been asking and consulting their lawyers on how to protect their wealth and estates against divorce or especially “gold digging spouses” who could just want to get married to a rich partner just because that individual is rich and wealthy with the sole aim of divorcing the spouse immediately and running to court for alimony to get a huge split of the spouse’s estate and wealth.

This is where prenuptial agreement comes in.

Rich kids or individuals who have gathered wealth for themselves before marriage are always advised to get a prenup or prenuptial agreement to protect their estates/wealth against future divorces and judicial separation. In the absence of prenuptial agreement you will be subjected to marital laws for the split of properties during divorce/ judicial separation and you never can tell how far the court can go in dividing your estate between you and your spouse in the event of divorce as the court are guided by ‘fairness and equitability’. 

What is a prenup? 

Prenuptial agreement or prenup is a written agreement entered into by spouses who are about to get married where they agree upon terms and conditions that specify their marital rights when they finally get married. Prenuptial agreement supersedes other default marital laws that would otherwise apply in the event of divorce or judicial separation such as the Matrimonial Causes Act which applies to statutory marriages in Nigeria and the court will only enforce the contents of the prenup.  This law (The Matrimonial Causes Act) governs the split and division of property, retirement benefits, savings, and the right to approach the court for spousal support (alimony) etc.

Prenuptial agreement does not only provide for what happens in the event of a divorce or how the properties are to be shared in the event of divorce but it is also entered by spouses to protect some properties acquired during the marriage or some properties which have a sentimental value to a spouse.

It should however be noted that for a prenuptial agreement to be enforceable by the court it must be made in good faith. A prenuptial agreement may be declared unenforceable when such an agreement was made or signed under fraud, made or signed by a partner under duress or undue influence or without adequate disclosure of all the assets and liabilities. 

Prenuptial agreement is the only best way ‘legally’ to protect your assets or wealth before embarking into marriage especially in contract marriages or marriages which are not meant to last for the lifetime.