Cool Company Raises · YC S26 · ethos-space.com

Ethos Space Resources launches at YC (Summer 2026)

Ethos Space Resources makes solar-grade silicon on the Moon. Demand for AI compute is compounding toward a terawatt a year of new capacity, and once data centres head to orbit it is rocket capacity, not the grid, that caps the buildout — so terawatt-scale AI in space has to be built from mass already outside Earth's gravity well. Ethos melts, electrolyses and purifies lunar regolith in hard vacuum, a single process that yields construction materials, rocket propellant and solar-grade silicon, tested in the company's own lunar environment chamber. The work starts with mining and construction for the first heavy landings: landing pads, propellant for the trip home, and silicon that turns sunlight into more capacity. Founded in 2022 by Ross Centers (Planetary Sunshade Institute) and Brogan BamBrogan (former principal propulsion engineer at SpaceX, co-founder of Hyperloop One), Ethos is based in Los Angeles and is part of Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch.