Elon Musk’s Hyperloop may have seemed like a crazy idea pulled out of a science fiction novel when first introduced, but every day it seems closer to reality.
A group called Hyperloop Technologies has stepped up as the first funded Hyperloop startup, armed with an $8.5 million pool of money and plans for an $80 milion funding round later this year.
It’s an all-star team. There’s Shurvin Pichevar, a major investor in Uber close to Musk, Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir, Joe Messina, former White House deputy chief of staff, David Sacks, founder of Yammer, Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-prize, and Brogan BamBrogan, one of SpaceX’s key engineers.
To be clear, this isn’t just Musk’s project anymore; although his 58-page white paper laid out the basic concepts behind the vacuum-tube transportation system, Musk is simply too busy running Tesla and SpaceX to take charge of such a large scale project on his own.
Instead groups like Hyperloop Technologies are working towards individual solutions to bring the Hyperloop to the world. This one in particular intends to redirect the project’s focus somewhat towards cargo before working on human transportation, making shipping around the world a much quicker process.
Whatever direction the project goes in, Hyperloop might just be our future transportation. Musk recently announced plans to build a Hyperloop test track in Texas, so we may start to get our first real glimpse at the project soon. For more on Hyperloop Technologies, check out their landing page here.
➤ Hyperloop Is Real: Meet The Startups Selling Supersonic Travel [Forbes]
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.