October 4th marks 29 years of building a more abundant and equitable future for all!
XPRIZE started in 1994 when our founder Peter H. Diamandis set out with the audacious goal to “Inspire and guide entrepreneurs to solve grand challenges.” The first challenge we started with? Democratizing access to Space.
The Ansari XPRIZE challenged teams to build and launch a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying people to space, then returning safely to Earth, twice in the span of two weeks. Quickly the prize, and the $10M purse, gripped the world’s attention. When SpaceShipOne, led by Burt Rutan, won the prize in 2004, XPRIZE had officially catalyzed the now $500B private spaceflight industry.
In the nearly two decades since awarding that prize, XPRIZE has launched another 25 prizes, inspired and guided more than 10,000 innovators from 148 countries around the world, worked with more than 380 partners and prize sponsors, and raised a cumulative prize purse of $284M that has sparked $2B in investments in and by competing teams.
We are proud of these achievements and grateful to you for joining us and making this all possible. We are committed to decades more of innovation, inspiration, and building an abundant and optimistic future for us all.