From fintech to space tech: Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is betting on space solar

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the interest in both space and solar grows, one startup aims to merge the two industries. By tapping into the momentum of the commercial space industry and the increasing demand for renewable energy, Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt is on a mission to make space-based solar power a reality with his latest startup: Aetherflux. Today on Equity, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Bhatt to talk about his transition from fintech to deep tech and why he believes now is the right time to scatter solar power-collecting satellites across the skies. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How Aetherflux approached funding as a bootstrapped startup (for now), and what investor interest in space-based solar looks like. The challenge of scaling tech that’s literally out of this world. And Bellan and Bhatt’s idea for a Burning Man light show. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is presented by Invest Puerto Rico.
0:03.4	If you believe your business can go anywhere, Puerto Rico is the place.
0:19.1	Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.
0:24.3	I'm Rebecca Boulon, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us home in on a trend in the tech world and dive deep.
0:31.7	Over here at Equity, we've noticed a growing interest in two sectors in particular, space and solar.
0:37.1	One startup hopes to combine the two
0:38.7	by leveraging the tailwinds of both the commercial space industry and the world's need for
0:42.8	renewable energy. So today, we're going to talk to Beju Bhatt. He's the former co-founder at
0:47.2	Retail Stock Trading App Robin Hood, but more recently, he's launched a new startup called Atherflux,
0:52.2	and that's dedicated to space-based solar power.
0:55.1	Bejou, welcome to the show.
0:56.5	How's it going? Thanks for having me.
0:58.1	Yeah, thanks so much for coming on.
0:59.8	So for those who don't know, Bejou is the co-founder of Robin Hood, a very popular stock trading app, and now the founder of Ather Flux.
1:08.0	So what a shift? Can you tell me what inspired you to go from Robin Hood,
1:12.2	which is like fintech, to what your current company is, which is space-based energy?
1:16.7	Absolutely. I mean, the story, the journey to space, perhaps, I think it started actually
1:21.8	pretty early in my life. My family had this interesting trajectory where my dad, grown up in India, had wanted to study physics his whole life.
1:30.9	I've been applying to PhD programs to get into graduate school to study physics in America because that was kind of a dream from a little town in India, which I guess now is not such a little town.
1:40.8	He gets into a PhD program at the University of Huntsville, Alabama, right before I was
1:45.3	born. And I grew up with him studying physics there, and then later on would go on to work at
1:50.4	the NASA side of Langley Air Force Base, so NASA Langley. So I'd kind of grown up around the
	...

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