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Star Catcher Industries raised a $12.25 million seed round to build an energy grid in space.

Why it matters: The futuristic idea is aimed at enabling satellites to do more than current sources — on-board batteries and solar panels — allow.

State of play: There are about 5,000 satellites in low-earth orbit — and may be as many as 30,000-40,000 by 2030.

The intrigue: Most conserve power by doing only certain things at a time, such as shifting position and only then snapping photos.

That "duty cycling" ends up "reducing their overall revenue generating/service providing uptime," president and CEO Andrew Rush tells Axios.

The latest: Star Catcher, based in Jacksonville, Fla., aims to provide more power by beaming the sun's rays to satellites' solar panels.

The idea is to "sell energy services to customers much like a power utility sells power terrestrially or AWS sells computing or storage services," Rush says.

Driving the news: The far-out plan convinced Initialized Capital and B Capital to lead Star Catcher's seed round.

The all-equity raise, the startup's first, started and closed in Q2. Rogue VC participated.

Star Catcher raises $12.3M for orbital energy grid

Its vessels would beam sunlight to satellites' solar panels.

A rendering depicts gray circular satellites designed by Star Catcher to beam energy to other low-earth orbit satellites.

A rendering of Star Catcher's proposed energy-beaming satellites. Rendering: Courtesy of Star Catcher Industries

Space

Star Catcher Industries raised a <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="$12.25 million seed round" data-vars-click-url="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/star-catcher-closes-12-25m-seed-round-to-transform-space-operations-with-worlds-first-space-based-energy-grid-302204864.html" data-vars-content-id="8f394dd3-c078-4ba6-96f6-b720c0140154" data-vars-headline="Star Catcher raises $12.3M for orbital energy grid" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/star-catcher-closes-12-25m-seed-round-to-transform-space-operations-with-worlds-first-space-based-energy-grid-302204864.html" target="_blank">$12.25 million seed round</a> to build an energy grid in space.Why it matters: The futuristic idea is aimed at enabling satellites to do more than current sources — on-board batteries and solar panels — allow.

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Star Catcher raises $12.3M for orbital energy grid

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