When Baiju Bhatt stepped away from his role as Chief Creative Officer at Robinhood last year, only those close to him could have predicted his next move: launching a space company built around tech that the aerospace industry has largely dismissed, and which might be more groundbreaking than anyone realizes.<\/p>\n
If people aren\u2019t paying much attention, that\u2019s just fine with Bhatt, who co-founded the trading app in 2013, five years after earning his master\u2019s degree in mathematics at Stanford. It means less competition for his new company, Aetherflux<\/a>, which has so far raised $60 million on its quest to prove that beaming solar power from space isn\u2019t science fiction but a new chapter for both renewable energy and national defense.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil you do stuff in space, if you happen to be an aerospace company, you\u2019re actually an aspiring space company,\u201d Bhatt said on Wednesday night at a TechCrunch StrictlyVC event<\/a> held in a glass-lined structure on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. \u201cI would like to transition from \u2018aspiring space company\u2019 to \u2018space company\u2019 sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n Bhatt\u2019s space ambitions date back to his childhood. He says that his dad, who worked as an optometrist in India, spent a decade applying to graduate physics programs in the United States, eventually taking a hard left turn and landing at NASA as a research scientist.<\/p>\n He then proceeded to use the powers of reverse psychology on his son, says Bhatt. \u201cMy dad worked at NASA through my whole childhood\u201d and \u201che was very adamant: \u2018When you grow up, I\u2019m not going to tell you you should study physics.\u2019 Which is a very effective way of convincing somebody to do exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, at roughly the same age his father was when he joined NASA, Bhatt is making his own move into space, seemingly with an eye toward creating even more impact than at Robinhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s certainly taking a big swing with the effort.<\/p>\n Traditional space solar power concepts have focused on massive geostationary satellites, using microwave transmission to beam energy to Earth. The scale and complexity made these projects perpetually \u201c20 years away,\u201d Bhatt said Wednesday night. \u201cEverything was too big . . .The size of the array, the size of the spacecraft was the size of a small city. That\u2019s real science fiction stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n His solution is both far smaller and more nimble, he suggested. Most notably, instead of massive microwave antennas that require precise phase coordination, Aetherflux\u2019s satellites will use fiber lasers, essentially converting solar power back into focused light that can be precisely targeted at receivers on the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cWe take the solar power that we collect from the sun with solar panels, and we take that energy and put it into a set of diodes that turn it back into light,\u201d Bhatt said. \u201cThat light goes into a fiber where there\u2019s a laser, which then lets us point that down to the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea is to launch a demonstration satellite in June of next year.<\/p>\n National security, first<\/strong><\/p>\n While Bhatt envisions eventually building \u201ca true industrial-scale energy company,\u201d he\u2019s starting with national defense. In fact, the Department of Defense has approved funding for Aetherflux\u2019s program, recognizing the military value of beaming power to forward bases without the logistical nightmare of transporting fuel. \u201cIt allows the U.S. to have energy out in the battlefield,\u201d Bhatt explained.<\/p>\n The precision Bhatt is promising is remarkable. Aetherflux\u2019s initial target is a laser spot \u201cbigger than 10 meters diameter\u201d on the ground, but Bhatt believes they can shrink it to \u201cfive to 10 meters, potentially even smaller than that.\u201d These compact, lightweight receivers would be \u201cof little to no strategic value if captured by an adversary\u201d and \u201csmall enough and portable enough that you can literally bring them out into the battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n While much remains to be seen \u2014 pretty much the whole shebang, really \u2014 success for Aetherflux could potentially change the game for American military operations worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n So why hasn\u2019t someone already done what Aetherflux is attempting? As noted last year<\/a> in Space News, a 2007 study<\/a> found promise in the approach and recommended more research, but no one acted on the report (Bhatt said he wasn\u2019t aware of it). Either way, to Bhatt, it\u2019s the kind of overlooked opportunity that an outsider is well-positioned to seize. Indeed, in addition to his own father, Bhatt said that he draws inspiration from someone else who has proved that if you\u2019re curious and willing to work hard, you can master multiple industries: Elon Musk. That outsider perspective \u201cis actually an advantage,\u201d Bhatt told the crowd.<\/p>\n Of course, unlike the iterate-fast mentality of companies like Robinhood that can roll out, and also sometimes roll back<\/a>, software features, space hardware involves much higher stakes. You only get one shot when your satellite launches.<\/p>\n \u201cWe build one spacecraft, we bolt it to the fairing inside of the SpaceX rocket, we put it in space, and it detaches, and then the thing better work,\u201d Bhatt said. \u201cYou can\u2019t go up there and tighten the bolt.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked during the sit-down how he pressure-tests that spacecraft, Bhatt said that Aetherflux is pursuing a \u201chardware-rich\u201d approach, which means building and testing components while refining designs. \u201cThe right balance is not waiting five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, as is the case with many important space programs,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople\u2019s careers are oftentimes shorter than that.\u201d<\/p>\n He also noted that if Aetherflux succeeds, the implications extend far beyond military applications. Space-based solar power could provide baseload renewable energy, or solar power that works day and night, anywhere on Earth. That might mean turning upside down the ways we currently think about energy distribution, offering power to remote locations without massive infrastructure investments and providing emergency power during disasters.<\/p>\n Aetherflux has already hired a mix of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers from Lawrence Livermore Labs, Rivian, Cruise, and SpaceX, among other places, and Bhatt said the 25-person organization is still hiring. \u201cIf you are the kind of person that wants to work on stuff that\u2019s super, super difficult, please come and contact us,\u201d he told attendees.<\/p>\n Bhatt has more than his reputation riding on what happens from here. He self-funded Aetherflux\u2019s first $10 million, and he says he also contributed to a more recent $50 million round<\/a> that was led by Index Ventures and Interlagos, and included Bill Gates\u2019s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and NEA, among others.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aetherflux\u2019s timeline is aggressive, too. That plan to launch a demonstration satellite precisely one year from now means that it\u2019s basically around the corner.<\/p>\n Still, there\u2019s a prototype for Bhatt\u2019s approach. GPS started as a DARPA project before becoming ubiquitous civilian infrastructure. Similarly, Aetherflux is working closely with DARPA\u2019s beaming expert, Dr. Paul Jaffe, who Bhatt called \u201ca pretty good friend to our company.\u201d Jaffe also works with other companies developing similar technology, positioning DARPA as a bridge between military applications and commercial potential.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this precedent of doing stuff in space where there\u2019s a really important part of working with the government,\u201d Bhatt said. \u201cBut we actually think, over time, as the technology matures and things like [SpaceX\u2019s reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle] Starship really open up commercial access to space, this is not going to be just a Department of Defense thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/54600256946_d27650ef50_c.jpg?w=680\")
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