TAMPA, Fla. — Cowboy Space, founded less than two years ago as Aetherflux to develop space-based solar power, has raised $275 million at a $2 billion valuation to build rockets with upper stages that would serve as data centers once in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The San Carlos, California-based startup said early-stage investor Index Ventures led the Series B funding round in a brief May 11 news release, after leading its $50 million Series A last year.
Cowboy founder and CEO Baiju Bhatt, who also co-founded financial services app Robinhood and joined the funding round, told SpaceNews the venture has now raised around $365 million to date.
The deal makes Cowboy one of the space industry’s fastest “unicorns” — privately held companies valued at $1 billion or more — just over a month after two-year-old Starcloud crossed the threshold with a $170 million Series A to develop its own orbital data centers.
Starcloud is looking to raise at least $200 million more in a deal that would double that valuation to $2.2 billion, according to a source close to the situation, as SpaceX, Blue Origin and others also chase an emerging market promising to address the power and cooling constraints facing terrestrial data centers.
