Boring Company lands $3 billion UAE-led funding

The Boring Company has secured $3 billion in a Series D funding round led by the United Arab Emirates and affiliated investment entities, lifting the Elon Musk-founded tunnelling startup’s valuation to $23 billion.

The financing will support an expanded partnership to develop more than 150 kilometres of underground infrastructure across the UAE, building on the company’s Dubai Loop project, as well as hiring and expansion of other Loop systems in the United States and Dubai.

Other participants in the round included Human Capital, Vy Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Temasek, Shamal Holding and Baron Capital. The company did not disclose how much each investor contributed or identify all of the UAE-linked entities involved in leading the financing.

The new valuation represents a fourfold increase from the $5.675 billion figure attached to The Boring Company’s $675 million Series C round in April 2022. That financing was led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital and included several other venture and real-estate investors.

The latest capital raise also comes as the company moves from planning to implementation on major tunnel projects outside its Las Vegas base. Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority signed a strategic partnership agreement with The Boring Company in February to begin implementing the Dubai Loop passenger transport project.

Under the Dubai plan, the pilot phase is expected to include about 6.4 kilometres of tunnel and four stations. The company says the initial system is designed to carry roughly 13,000 passengers a day, while the broader network could eventually reach a capacity of about 30,000 passengers daily.

The Boring Company has said construction of the Dubai pilot is due to begin in the second half of 2026, subject to design work, permits and no-objection approvals from authorities. The project is intended to use small-diameter tunnels carrying electric vehicles between stations as an underground alternative to congested surface roads.

Parsons Corporation was awarded a nine-month contract in May to support the Dubai Loop’s pilot phase. Its work includes independent design verification, stakeholder management, permitting assistance and reviews covering civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, safety and utility systems.

The funding gives The Boring Company additional capital as it seeks to expand a business model that has so far reached its largest operational scale in Las Vegas. The company operates the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop and is extending the wider Vegas Loop network, which uses Tesla vehicles to carry passengers through underground tunnels and on some surface routes.

The company is also developing the Music City Loop in Nashville, Tennessee. It describes that project as a privately funded underground transport system intended to connect downtown Nashville, major entertainment areas and Nashville International Airport.

The Boring Company said part of the Series D proceeds would be used to increase recruitment across engineering, production and operations. Its expansion programme requires it to scale tunnelling equipment, construction teams and operating capacity as several projects advance at the same time.

The fundraising follows earlier market discussions around a substantially larger possible private stock offering. By July, investors had been considering a transaction that could have raised about $4 billion at a valuation near $20 billion, but the terms had not been finalised at that stage.

The completed $3 billion round therefore values the business above those earlier indications and places it among the more highly valued privately held infrastructure and transport technology companies. The financing also deepens the company’s commercial ties with the UAE at a time when Dubai is moving ahead with a transport project directly linked to its tunnelling technology.

The Boring Company was founded by Musk to reduce urban congestion by lowering tunnelling costs and increasing construction speed. Its core Loop concept relies on networks of tunnels designed for frequent point-to-point vehicle trips rather than conventional heavy-rail trains.