Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of trading app Robinhood, has launched a new space startup. Aetherflux aims to launch a constellation of satellites that will use infrared lasers to transmit solar power back to Earth. Butt spoke to BI about his reasons for joining the commercial space race and what Robinhood taught him. Capitalism.
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When Baiju Bhatt co-founded stock trading app Robinhood with his college best friend Vlad Tenev in 2013, the goal was to “democratize finance for everyone.”
Robinhood’s commission-free, gamified investing approach has made capital markets more accessible than ever, leading to an IPO in 2021.
After more than a decade at the company, Butt stepped down as Robinhood’s chief creative officer in March to pursue what he described at the time as “other entrepreneurial interests.”
In October, Bhatt announced he was launching Aetherflux, a space startup based in Silicon Valley.
Aetherflux aims to create a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) to collect solar energy and use infrared lasers to send a beam to a receptor on Earth.
Butt told Business Insider in an interview that he expects Aetherflux to revolutionize energy in the same way that Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation revolutionized communications.
Bhatt said the receptors are just 10 meters in diameter and can be placed virtually anywhere, allowing them to theoretically provide power to remote areas that are too expensive or dangerous to reach.
“If successful, it will unlock a renewable energy source for humanity that can be delivered virtually anywhere,” he said in a LinkedIn post announcing Aetherflux.
If it works, it will be able to capture far more solar power in orbit than in the atmosphere on the ground, and there will be no power interruptions at night or due to weather. It would also free up land used for solar power plants on Earth.
Aetherflux initially plans to power military operations in remote areas and mining operations in remote areas, Bhatt said.
Mr Butt said working in the space industry was his “lifetime calling.” Baiju Bhatt
Butt hopes that one day a single receptor will be able to provide enough power for a small residential area. He added that about 100 satellites would be needed to provide continuous power to one location.
The idea of space-based solar power has been around for decades, but the theory is generally based on large structures sent into orbit and using microwaves to transmit energy. Ta.
In January 2023, the California Institute of Technology launched the Solar Space Power Demonstration Satellite into orbit for a one-year mission to test various potential approaches.
Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum said the project showed that solar power generation from space is “still a prospect in the future,” but “should be a viable future.”
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Aetherflux wants to do things differently using infrared lasers and a modular approach.
The science has already been proven. Butt said it would be an engineering and economic feat to prove it could be done from space.
First, Aetherflux plans to send one satellite into orbit by the first quarter of 2026 to demonstrate that solar energy transmission is possible.
The best time to be in space
Although the career jump from finance to space may seem unusual, Butt said space is his “lifetime calling.”
NASA was part of Mr. Batt’s childhood. His father came to the United States from India to study physics and took a job researching atmospheric science at NASA’s Langley Research Center in the 1990s.
Mr. Butt, who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in mathematics, both from Stanford University, thought he too would become a physicist. So Robinhood was “a bit of a detour,” he told BI.
He remains a member of the board of directors, but has stepped back from day-to-day operations.
Butt said one of the lessons he learned from running a trading app was how powerful capitalism is at accelerating innovation.
“If you can solve a stagnant problem and build a capitalist system around it where people can do something and make money, you’ll see the rate of progress really accelerate,” he said.
Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt co-founded online brokerage firm Robinhood in 2013. Spencer Platt
After meeting with DARPA’s power developers earlier this year and looking at Starship’s schedule, Butt decided space had the greatest opportunity now.
Since 2009, total private investment in space startups has soared from virtually nothing to $327.3 billion, according to the latest Space Investment Quarterly report published by venture capital and angel investment firm Space Angels.
The value of the industry is expected to continue to grow rapidly. McKinsey predicts the value of the global space economy will increase from $630 billion in 2023 to $1.8 trillion by 2035, accounting for inflation.
“It’s hard to find anything more exciting and impactful than space,” says Matthew Weinziel, professor of space economics at Harvard Business School and co-author of the forthcoming book Space to Grow. .
“This is truly a new frontier, where technological innovations can create new markets and solve real-world problems, often in ways never thought of before,” he said.
Weinziel said that over the past two decades, the U.S. government has created a path for commercial players and allowed market forces to take hold.
“The price of going into orbit is falling, the probability of launch is rising, and there is a wave of entrepreneurs finding new ways to create value,” he said.
SpaceX made history by returning its Heavy booster to its launch site in October 2024. SpaceX/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
With so many products on the market, space has never been cheaper.
Aetherflux is an example of how companies are using off-the-shelf solutions to speed up development. The company’s satellites will be purchased off-the-shelf from satellite bus provider Apex, the high-power lasers it plans to use are commercially available, and the company plans to use SpaceX as a launch partner for its 2026 mission.
“The parts we’re building are the actual optical design, the control system, the power transmission link, and the ground station,” Butt said.
The future of ether flux
When he spoke to BI, Butt had just moved to a research facility in the Bay Area. He and his team of 10 employees will conduct repeated ground tests, develop a system design and begin working with regulators.
He told BI that he is “completely” self-funding the project. Mr. Butt, one of Robinhood’s co-founders, saw his net worth skyrocket after his 2021 IPO. According to a report in Forbes magazine, his net worth is approximately $1.7 billion.
Although access to space has become more routine and affordable, Weinziel said there is still a lot of uncertainty in the industry. While some of the ideas and businesses being developed today may not survive, they will become “the foundations that tomorrow’s entrepreneurs will learn from and build upon,” he said.
Bhatt, a self-described science geek, named his startup after a 19th-century theory about a permeable medium called the ether, which physicists believed light passed through.
“Einstein came along in 1905 and was basically like, ‘No, all that stuff is wrong.’ Light is the same in every frame of reference,” Butt said.
So, is Aetherflux named after a disproved scientific theory? Yes, Mr. Butt agreed, amused. However, he is “laser focused” on the first mission and is adamant that Aetherflux will not fall into the same category as its namesake.
“Space is difficult,” he acknowledged, “but we are committed to demonstrating this and making it happen.”
