We first met Baiju Bhatt when he was building Robinhood and saw his relentless focus paired with his thoughtful ability to push the boundaries. Through years of board meetings and late-night conversations, something kept coming up: Baiju had his heart set on going beyond our orbit. His father was a research scientist at NASA Langley, and space wasn't a passing interest; it was his passion and fascination. When he told us he was stepping away to start a space company, we had questions, but we weren't surprised. As Baiju himself has said, space was always the destination.
Today, we're excited to share that IVP is investing in Cowboy Space Corporation’s Series B.
Commercializing Space
Cowboy Space Corporation began with a simple insight: the sun is always shining in orbit. Solar energy in space is continuous and roughly 40% stronger than what reaches Earth, uninterrupted by clouds, weather, or nightfall. The original idea was to collect that energy on low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites and beam it back to Earth via infrared lasers, delivering power anywhere without dependence on terrestrial grids or years-long permitting cycles.
But Baiju and his team quickly recognized something bigger. If you can generate abundant, cheap power in space, you don't just have to send it down. You can use it up there. And in a world where AI is consuming every available watt on Earth, this starts to look very compelling.
That realization first led to Cowboy’s plan to build a constellation of orbital data centers powered by the solar energy of space,and now, a purpose-built launch rocket to deploy that vision at commercial scale.
Why Now
The AI energy bottleneck is no longer a future problem. GPUs are shipping faster than they can be deployed, while data center capacity is only growing in the single digits. The gap between buying hardware and turning it on can stretch five to eight years once you factor in permitting, grid interconnects, and cooling — and companies are paying enormous premiums to shave that down.
Orbital compute changes the equation. The reusable rocket revolution that made satellite internet viable has collapsed launch costs, opening a window for space-based data centers that didn't exist three years ago.
How It Works
What makes Cowboy Space Corporation unusual is its design-first approach. Most startups are designing payloads to fit on someone else's rocket. Cowboy is building the entire system — power, compute, and launch — as a single integrated vehicle. The rocket's upper stage not only delivers a data center, it becomes one. This turns data center deployment from a construction project into an industrial manufacturing process.
The programs are running in parallel, with rocket engines being developed in LA, satellite engineering in Seattle, and subscale test launches already underway ahead of the first full megawatt-class mission. The company has also announced it is working with Lockheed Martin for NASA's lunar power program.
Looking Up
At IVP, we've spent forty-five years partnering with founders at inflection points, critical moments where companies are on the cusp of hockey stick growth. We saw it in enterprise software, in fintech, and in cloud infrastructure.
The inflection point here is undeniable — the convergence of AI's growing energy appetite, falling launch costs, and proven laser transmission technology has created a real window, and Baiju and his team are building with the urgency the moment demands.
The sun never sets in orbit, and equally, Cowboy Space Corporation is just getting started.
