Aetherflux

Aetherflux is an American renewable energy company founded by Baiju Bhatt, the co-founder and former co-chief executive officer of Robinhood. The company seeks to expand upon and commercialize space-based solar power, an old concept of collecting solar power in space with solar power satellites and transmitting it to Earth.

Technology

The company plans to build a constellation of satellites that collect solar energy in space via solar panels, distributing the energy back to ground stations on Earth through infrared lasers. The approach differs from those explored by governments and universities, and calls for transmission via infrared lasers instead of microwaves. Aetherflux’s satellites will also orbit in low-earth-orbit instead of geo-stationary. The first applications of the company's technology are designed to deliver potential power for various United States military operations, remote research stations or remote mining applications.

Aetherflux plans to initially have compact, lightweight receivers which have a diameter “bigger than 10 meters", but Bhatt said that the company will be able to reduce that diameter to “five to 10 meters, potentially even smaller than that.”

History

In March 2024, Bhatt stepped down from his role at Robinhood to focus on an unnamed company, eventually revealing itself as Aetherflux. His interest in space stemmed from his father’s work as a scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center.

In October 2024, Bhatt announced his new company Aetherflux. Aetherflux shared that it employed about 10 people. The company purchased a satellite bus from Apex, a satellite company of which Bhatt is an investor, and began designing the payload. Bhatt has committed around US$10 million of his own money to fund the company, and the company plans to undertake its first mission and space demonstration in early 2026.

One day after the company's announcement of public operations, on October 10th, 2024, Aetherflux became a member of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), an American aerospace industry group promoting the commercial space industry. Later in the month, the company announced that Daniel M. Gallagher, the chief legal officer of Robinhood Markets, joined Aetherflux as an advisor.

In April 2025, ''Bloomberg'' reported that Aetherflux had raised $50 million in Series A funding, co-led by Index Ventures and Interlagos, a venture capital firm created by former SpaceX leadership. Additional investment came from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev, Robinhood chief legal officer Daniel Gallagher, artist Jared Leto, and watchmaker François-Paul Journe. The company has raised $60 million to date. The United States Department of Defense’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF) approved Aetherflux’s space solar program for funding to develop a proof of concept demonstrating power transmission from low-earth-orbit to Earth.

Precedents

Space-based solar power can be traced back to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story, ''Reason'', while the name of the company was inspired by the idea of aether theories.

A 2007 study for the National Security Space Office found solar space power to be promising and recommended further research, which did not happen. Bhatt has said that he wasn’t aware of the 2007 study.

References

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Aerospace companies of the United States
Companies based in California
Space organizations