Hyperloop One, a high-speed freight transportation firm, will shut down after failing to secure a contract to develop an operational hyperloop, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the situation.

According to the article, the Los Angeles-based company, which performed the world's first passenger ride on a super high-speed levitating pod system in 2020, will sell off its remaining assets and lay off its remaining staff on December 31, this year.

A request for comment from Reuters was not immediately returned.

A trip between New York and Washington in a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, would take only 30 minutes - twice as quick as a commercial jet flight and four times faster than a high-speed train.

In 2013, Elon Musk rekindled interest in the concept by describing how a modern hyperloop system would operate. His own tunnelling company, The Boring Company, aims to transport passengers in pods through the hyperloop, an interstate system of gigantic subterranean vacuum tubes.

Hyperloop One was created in 2014 and has raised over $400 million in funding, the majority of which has come from the United Arab Emirates shipping business DP World and British entrepreneur Richard Branson.