How Interstellar Labs Founder Barbara Belvisi Turned a Moonshot Into a Business

“Be very flexible on the plan, but never flexible on the vision.”

BY ELIZABETH GORE, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT @ELIZABETHGOREUS

Interstellar Labs Founder Barbara Belvisi. Photo: Interstellar Labs

When French entrepreneur Barbara Belvisi arrived in California with two suitcases and a concept for a space greenhouse, she did not have a working prototype or a commercial customer. What she had was a belief that growing plants beyond Earth could become both a scientific breakthrough and a viable business. She literally knocked on NASA’s door and the rest is history in the making. 

Eight years later, she leads Interstellar Lab, a 40-person company that has raised $15 million, built multiple prototypes, developed food production systems for NASA, and signed agreements with private space station companies including Vast, Axiom, and Voyager. The company plans to send a plant growth chamber into low Earth orbit next year with Vast. 

The broader market is no longer hypothetical. According to DataM Intelligence, the global space agriculture market reached $5.02 billion in 2024. It is projected to grow to $13.4 billion by 2032, reflecting a 13.09% compound annual growth rate. What once sounded like a niche experiment is now an emerging sector attracting serious capital and infrastructure. 

On a recent episode of The Big Idea podcast from Yahoo Finance, Belvisi explained how she translated an idea into an operating company. Three themes stood out. 

How Anthropic's Claude AI Became a Co-Founder

Hold the vision steady and adapt everything else. 

Belvisi’s ambition never softened, however the path changed constantly. 

“My first advice is to be very flexible on the plan, but never flexible on the vision,” Belvisi shared. 

At the outset, she did not have enough information to design a perfect roadmap. Rather than waiting for certainty, she focused on momentum. 

© Inc.com