Inside Blue Origin: From 2000 to Now Into a $2.5 billion business
Startup Type:
Headquarter: Kent, USA
Current Status: Active (private; completed multiple human suborbital flights)
Founders: Jeff Bezos
Founded Year: 2000
Investors: Jeff Bezos, NASA
Funding Raised: $2.5 billion
What Is the business model of Blue Origin?
Private spaceflight company developing rockets and spacecraft with a long-term vision of enabling millions of people to live and work in space; funded primarily by founder’s wealth and revenue from launch services/tourism
How Blue Origin got started?
Bezos started Blue Origin quietly in 2000, spending his Amazon wealth to pursue human spaceflight with a mantra of slow, step-by-step development, for years it operated in secrecy until more public tests in the mid-2010s
what growth strategy has Blue Origin followed?
Pursued a methodical approach, first mastering suborbital flight with the New Shepard rocket for space tourism, then working on the larger New Glenn orbital rocket, Bezos’s deep pockets and patient funding have allowed steady R&D and the company has started flying paying suborbital passengers
what are the top products/features of Blue Origin
New Shepard suborbital rocket, New Glenn orbital rocket, Blue Moon lunar lander
what was the biggest challenge faced by Blue Origin?
Criticized for slower progress compared to SpaceX, and internal churn — also faced the technical challenge of developing reusable rockets and competing for NASA contracts against well-established players