The California-based startup, launched by Baiju Bhatt, former co-CEO of the trading site Robinhood, is seeking to capture space’s abundant solar energy for energy-poor locations. Aetherflux is developing a constellation of small satellites that can transmit solar power to ground substations with infrared lasers.
Its technology is an improvement over microwave-based transmission, which requires larger ground stations, Bhatt explained in a blog post. Aetherflux hopes to bring power to remote islands and disaster areas, as well as military bases. The company secured $50 million from Interlagos, Index Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates and several angel investors to launch a demonstration satellite next year.
Solar system
“Making space solar power a reality won’t be easy,” acknowledged Bhatt. But technological progress means “launch costs are lower, lasers and optics are cheaper and more efficient and constellation management is better understood.”
In the final days of the Biden administration, Aetherflux was approved for a grant by the Department of Defense’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund to develop a proof of concept. ImpactAlpha could not determine by press time whether the funding has been disbursed.
