Aetherflux, the space solar power startup founded by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, is negotiating to raise $250 million to $350 million in a Series B round, valuing the company at $2 billion.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the fundraising, stating that Index Ventures is leading the deal. Since its inception in 2024, Aetherflux has accumulated about $80 million. The company declined to comment.
Recently, Aetherflux has reoriented its efforts toward space data centers, moving away from its original goal of transmitting electricity to Earth via lasers. Various space companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Starcloud, and others, are now working on innovative distributed compute architectures in space.
“We never lifted our pivot foot — it wasn’t a travel,” Bhatt joked in a recent TechCrunch interview. “The light bulb went off about a year ago that if you want to power AI with our technology, it’s more beneficial to place the chips in space rather than project power from space down to a terrestrial data center.”
While the company will continue experimenting with laser power transmission on a satellite bus built by Apex Space, its first data center satellite is anticipated in 2027. “Our goal is to build something that competes with terrestrial economics,” Bhatt stated.
The challenge won’t be easy.