SatNews

Satellite Industry Intelligence Since 1983

Funding & Venture Capital

Cowboy Raises $275M and Files for 20,000 Orbital Data Centers, Forcing the ODC Thesis Into View

May 18, 2026 / Data Processing & AI/ML

Cowboy Space Corporation, formerly Aetherflux, closed a $275M Series B led by Index Ventures and filed plans for a 20,000-satellite "Stampede" constellation three days later. The largest single capital commitment in orbital compute history lands inside a thesis SatNews has been mapping bottleneck by bottleneck all year. Editor-in-Chief Nick Warfield on what Cowboy actually bet $275M on, and what they have to prove.

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The Space Tourist Is Dead. Long Live the Orbital Industrialist.

February 11, 2026 / Business & Finance

Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. For the Space Industry Investment and Exit Strategies panel, a clear consensus emerged that the space sector has graduated from a science fair to a serious asset class. No one’s funding technology for technology's sake anymore. Today, capital flows follow what insiders call the barbell market of recurring revenue, defense utility, and the ability to survive.

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