Ashley Pilipiszyn's Besxar launched fabships with SpaceX, flown wafers cleaner
Ashley Pilipiszyn, a former OpenAI staffer who founded Besxar, is now leading Besxar, a startup aiming to supply wafers for advanced chips in space with help from SpaceX.
In July 2026, Besxar sent two prototype fabships into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket.
These space canisters' flown samples were already cleaner and had less particulate matter than non-flown terrestrial wafers, thanks to the vacuum of space keeping out contamination.
Nearly $14 million backs Besxar
Over the next two years, Besxar wants to perfect its chip-making process and try out new materials.
The big goal: use bigger factories on future SpaceX Starship missions and skip expensive clean rooms back on Earth.
Backed by almost $14 million in funding (with Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC leading the way), Besxar is racing against competitors like Space Forge to make wafers for everything from EVs to data centers.