Baiju Bhatt spent years hearing “no” before Robinhood became the app that made Wall Street flinch. Now he’s chasing something even more ambitious: putting data centers in orbit and beaming solar power from space.
In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, the Robinhood co-founder reflected on the grind of building a fintech company from scratch, the emotional high of taking it public, and why he left to start a company called Cowboy Space Corporation. It’s the kind of career pivot that sounds like a sci-fi pitch, except it just raised $275 million.
From commission-free trades to outer space
Bhatt co-founded Robinhood in 2013 alongside Vlad Tenev. The thesis was deceptively simple: let regular people trade stocks without paying commissions.
The early days were defined by rejection. Bhatt has spoken about the perseverance required to secure funding when few investors believed a zero-commission brokerage could work.
Then it worked. Robinhood’s user base exploded, particularly among younger retail investors who had never opened a brokerage account. The company went public in 2021, a milestone Bhatt has described as a career-defining moment.
But by March 2024, Bhatt stepped down from his role as chief creative officer. He remains on Robinhood’s board, but his day-to-day attention has shifted dramatically. From democratizing stock trading to building infrastructure in low Earth orbit.
Cowboy Space Corporation takes shape
Bhatt launched his space venture around October 2024 under the name Aetherflux. The company rebranded to Cowboy Space Corporation in May 2026.
The mission is twofold. First, space-based solar power, which involves capturing solar energy in orbit where the sun shines constantly and transmitting it back to Earth. Second, orbital data centers designed to meet the surging energy demands of artificial intelligence computing.
The financial backing suggests investors are taking the idea seriously. Cowboy Space raised a $50 million Series A in April 2025, then followed it up with a $275 million Series B in May 2026. That second round valued the company at $2 billion.
Bhatt’s approach leans heavily on vertical integration. Cowboy Space is developing proprietary rockets rather than relying on third-party launch providers. The company plans to launch demonstration satellites in 2026 and eventually build thousands of orbital data centers.
Why this matters beyond the headline
Space-based solar power has been a theoretical solution for decades without producing a commercially viable product. Bhatt is betting that the economics have finally shifted, largely because AI has created an energy demand curve that terrestrial infrastructure can’t keep up with.
But Bhatt’s track record counts for something. Robinhood faced deep skepticism before it reshaped an entire industry. The app forced every major brokerage in the US to drop trading commissions, a change that benefited tens of millions of investors who never even downloaded the Robinhood app.
The risk is obvious: space ventures burn cash at extraordinary rates, timelines slip constantly, and the technical hurdles between “demonstration satellite” and “thousands of orbital data centers” are enormous.