PANews reported on December 16th, citing Forbes, that Vast, a startup aiming to build the world's first commercial space station, is in talks for a $300 million funding round, valuing the company at $2 billion. The source indicated that Balerion Space Ventures will lead the round, noting that negotiations are ongoing and the figures are subject to change. To date, the company has been primarily self-funded by Jed McCaleb, founder of crypto companies Ripple and Stellar, who has amassed billions of dollars. He has stated his willingness to invest up to $1 billion of his personal wealth. Vast plans to launch its first space station prototype, "Haven-1," in 2026 and begin sending components of its next space station, "Haven-2," in 2028, intended to replace NASA's International Space Station.

In March of this year, Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb shared information about his space station company Vast's multi-billion dollar space station plan.