Key Takeaways:
Baiju Bhatt, the billionaire co-founder of Robinhood Markets, is walking away from the fintech empire he helped build to chase a far more ambitious target: space-based energy.
Baiju Bhatt, who helped democratize stock trading for millions of retail investors through Robinhood Markets, is now betting his fortune on Aetherflux, a startup aiming to beam solar energy from orbit — a venture that could reshape the $200 billion global renewable energy market if it succeeds.
"I've always been drawn to problems that seem impossible until someone solves them," Bhatt said in a Wall Street Journal interview published June 21. "Space-based solar power is one of those problems."
The entrepreneur left Robinhood — which entered the S&P 500 last year — with a billionaire's war chest. His path to that point included two failed startups and a $31,000 used BMW he bought in his 20s, a purchase he said fueled his ambition to build something transformative. He co-founded Robinhood with Vlad Tenev after a cross-country road trip, designing the app's intuitive interface that attracted millions of first-time investors.
Aetherflux enters a space-energy sector that has drawn billions in venture funding but has yet to deliver a commercially viable system. If Bhatt succeeds, the payoff could rival the wealth he generated at Robinhood. If the venture fails, it would mark his third startup miss — though this time with significantly more capital at stake.
The Road to Robinhood
Bhatt's journey to billionaire status was anything but linear. Before Robinhood, he and Tenev launched two startups that failed to gain traction. The breakthrough came when they identified a gap in the retail brokerage market: commission-free trading on a mobile-first platform. Robinhood launched in 2015 and quickly disrupted an industry dominated by Charles Schwab, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade, forcing incumbents to eliminate trading commissions within years.
The company went public in 2021 and joined the S&P 500 in 2025, a milestone that cemented its transition from meme-stock phenomenon to mainstream financial institution. Bhatt stepped away from day-to-day operations after the IPO, though he remained a major shareholder.
Why Space-Based Energy Now
Aetherflux aims to capture solar energy in space, where sunlight is constant and not subject to weather or nighttime interruptions, then transmit it to Earth via microwave or laser beams. The concept has been studied for decades but has never been deployed at commercial scale due to prohibitive launch costs and technical challenges.
Falling launch costs — driven by SpaceX's reusable rockets and increased competition in the launch market — have made the economics more viable. Bhatt is betting that the same kind of design simplicity that made Robinhood successful can be applied to the hardware challenge of space-based power collection and transmission.
The startup faces competition from established aerospace companies and other well-funded startups pursuing similar concepts. None have yet demonstrated a working system capable of delivering grid-scale power.
What's at Stake for Investors
For Robinhood shareholders, Bhatt's departure from active management is not new — he had already stepped back after the IPO. The company continues to be led by Tenev as chief executive officer and has expanded into retirement accounts, credit cards and cryptocurrency trading.
For the broader energy and space sectors, Aetherflux represents a high-risk, high-reward bet. If Bhatt can replicate even a fraction of the disruption he brought to finance, the implications for renewable energy markets could be significant. If not, the venture will join a long list of ambitious space-energy projects that failed to reach orbit.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
