Cowboy Space Corporation raises $275 million for orbital data centers

Cowboy Space Corporation has raised $275 million in a Series B funding round—a stage of venture capital financing—valuing the startup at $2 billion. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Construct Capital, IVP, and SAIC. The startup, which launched in 2024, previously raised $80 million from investors including Index Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and New Enterprise Associates. The company is pivoting from space-based solar energy collection to building orbital data centers, which are data center infrastructures located in space.

To support this pivot, the startup is building its own rocket program to launch these data centers. CEO and founder Baiju Bhatt explained that the company is standing up its own rocket program because of the scarcity of launch capacity. Bhatt noted that while new launch vehicles are entering the market, capacity remains highly constrained over the next three to four years, and he expects first-party rocket providers to specialize in their own payloads. This scarcity of launch capacity from existing providers like SpaceX—which is expected to conduct its 12th Starship test flight—and Blue Origin led the company to develop its own launch capabilities rather than relying solely on third-party providers.

Instead of launching satellites as payloads, Cowboy Space plans to build its data centers directly into the second stage of its rocket—the upper stage of a rocket that delivers the payload to orbit. This design is intended to simplify development by making the rocket purpose-built for its specific cargo, drawing inspiration from the first U.S. satellite, which was integrated directly into a rocket stage. The technical specifications for each integrated second-stage data center include:

• A total satellite mass of 20,000 to 25,000 kilograms
• Onboard power generation of 1 MW
• Capacity for 800 onboard GPUs

To execute this rocket program, Cowboy Space has hired industry veterans, including former Blue Origin propulsion engineer Warren Lamont and former SpaceX launch director Tyler Grinnell. The company will compete with launch providers in the West, but Bhatt remains confident in the market’s capacity. “The prize here, and the size of this market, is big enough that there’s room for many players to succeed,” Bhatt said. The company expects to launch its first rocket before the end of 2028.

Why it matters

Cowboy Space Corporation is betting that the scarcity of launch capacity for orbital data centers is severe enough to justify the capital expenditure of building its own rocket program.