Rendering of Aetherflux’s Mission 1 on an Apex satellite bus. Photo: Aetherflux

Baiju Bhatt, one of the co-founders of investing app Robinhood, is launching a space solar power company called Aetherflux. Bhatt announced the concept of Aetherflux to commercialize space solar power as a renewable energy source, in a Medium post on Wednesday. 

Bhatt co-founded the trading app Robinhood in 2013 and served as co-CEO of the app until 2020. He was then chief creative officer until stepping down in March of this year. He remains a board member of Robinhood and Forbes estimates his net worth to be $1.7 billion. 

Aetherflux plans to build a constellation of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites to transmit power to small ground stations using infrared lasers to deliver power on Earth. The company did not share more specifics about its satellite plans, but a rendering named “Mission 1” shows a satellite bus from Los Angeles-based spacecraft manufacturing startup Apex. 

“Space solar power can revolutionize energy distribution, especially where delivering power is expensive, challenging, or dangerous. Powering hard-to-reach places like remote military bases, islands, or areas hit by disasters unlocks new capabilities and advantages for our country,” Bhatt wrote in the post. “Long term, we want to deliver renewable and affordable energy, day and night, to power commercial or civilian use cases.” 

The company’s office is located in San Carlos, California, and has backgrounds working for Robinhood, SpaceX, Luminar, and Continental, and others. Aetherflux is hiring for a number of roles, including laser engineer.