The Boring Company raises $3B in round led by UAE

Elon Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Company, announced a $3 billion Series D financing that values the business at $23 billion. The round was led by the United Arab Emirates, the company said, with several well-known venture investors also taking part. Among the other participants in the deal were Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Human Capital, Vy Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. The Boring Company indicated the new capital will support a major expansion in the Middle East, including plans to excavate over 150 kilometers of tunnels in the UAE. To date, most of the company’s digging has been concentrated in Las Vegas, where it runs a limited network of tunnels connecting hotel casinos and the city’s convention center. The company has also begun work on a project in Nashville, Tennessee, that calls for a roughly 10-mile underground “loop.” The Boring Company has long framed its mission as addressing roadway congestion by relocating vehicle travel into an underground, three-dimensional tunnel system and described that aim as an effort to “solve traffic.” The fundraising follows reporting in July by The Wall Street Journal that the company was exploring a raise of as much as $4 billion.