Cowboy Space Corp., a space startup growing out a new satellite and rocket engineering center in Seattle, raised $275 million in a Series B funding round this week that valued the company at $2 billion.
The Bay Area-based company — formerly known as Aetherflux — was founded in 2024 by CEO Baiju Bhatt, the billionaire co-founder of the trading platform Robinhood.
Cowboy Space is building satellites that double as data centers, powered by solar energy harvested in orbit. The idea is to sidestep the two biggest bottlenecks for AI computing on Earth — the soaring demand for electricity and the scarcity of land and water needed to cool traditional data centers.
The company also builds its own rockets to launch the satellites, and has designed the rocket’s upper stage and the data center as a single unit rather than separate pieces.
Cowboy Space opened a Seattle office earlier this year with a focus on satellite design and rocket/propulsion engineering. A rep for the company told GeekWire Wednesday that they anticipate 40-60 employees in Seattle initially, and there are currently 18 positions advertised across roles including avionics, mechanical engineering, spacecraft design, and software.
Director of Satellite Engineering David Larson, a SpaceX and Amazon vet, and Head of Propulsion Warren Lamont, a Blue Origin and IonQ vet, will be leading the office. The company is not yet sharing details on the specific location for the satellite center.
The startup is competing for talent in the Seattle area with a robust aerospace community of companies big and small. They include Blue Origin, Stoke Space, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Starfish Space, Starcloud, Xplore and many more. SpaceX also produces satellites for its Starlink broadband constellation from its Redmond, Wash., facility and Amazon produces satellites for its Amazon Leo broadband satellite network in Kirkland, Wash.
The company is collaborating with NVIDIA to deploy its Space-1 Vera Rubin Modules in low Earth orbit, and plans to launch its first satellite later this year to demonstrate space-to-Earth power beaming.
Total funding is now $335 million. The latest round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from new investors IVP, Blossom Capital, and SAIC, alongside existing investors Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Interlagos and Bhatt.
