Aetherflux is reportedly in talks to raise $250 million to $350 million in a Series B round that would value the company at $2 billion, according to TechCrunch, citing an earlier Wall Street Journal report. TechCrunch said Index Ventures is leading the deal.
The company, founded in 2024 by Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt, has raised about $80 million since launch, according to the report. TechCrunch also reported that Aetherflux declined to comment.
Shift in Focus
TechCrunch said Aetherflux has changed emphasis in recent months. The company originally centered on sending electricity from space to Earth with lasers, but it is now pushing its power-generation technology toward space data centers.
Bhatt told TechCrunch that the company concluded it could be more advantageous to place chips in space rather than beam power down to a terrestrial data center. The report also said Aetherflux still plans to continue testing laser power transmission on a satellite bus built by Apex Space.
What Comes Next
According to TechCrunch, Aetherflux expects its first data center satellite in 2027. Bhatt also told the publication that the company’s goal is to build something that competes with terrestrial economics.
The report placed Aetherflux alongside other space companies developing distributed compute systems in space, including SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Starcloud.