For those who don't regularly check out The Space Review (you really should), Jeff Foust has a good overview of the financing prospects for private RLVs. Summary: he's not sanguine about the near-term prospects for getting orbital systems, but thinks that profitable suborbital ones could provide a path to them. I agree, though I'm not quite as pessimistic about orbital transports as he is. We'll see if Elon Musk can prove him wrong by evolving from a partially reusable system to a fully reusable one.

Actually, I would love it if SpaceX proves me wrong and develops a reusable orbital launch system. SpaceX shares the key advantage of suborbital vehicles in that they have an evolutionary, incremental path towards more capable vehicles, with each of those steps able to serve new or expanded markets. It's a simlar approach, just from a different direction. (SpaceX does have some challenges ahead, particularly in making both stages reusable, but even if reusability proves to be an intractable problem, they still have a vehicle that is attractive to a number of markets.)