Starcloud, a startup building satellites to run AI inference in orbit, has added a $250 million extension to the $170 million Series A it announced in March, bringing the company’s valuation to $2.3 billion.
The new capital will be used to open a larger manufacturing facility and to accelerate development of the company’s largest orbital data center spacecraft, Starcloud‑3. CEO Philip Johnston is also raising funds to ensure the company can secure launch capacity as the market tightens.
“We can see what’s coming — we’re going to need to book an enormous amount of launch,” Johnston told TechCrunch. Starcloud has already applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for authority to operate 88,000 spacecraft.
Launch market uncertainty and Starship
Johnston said the company wants to get under contract with launch providers such as SpaceX’s Starship as soon as possible, because securing launch capacity is becoming a major cost and constraint. He noted that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 program is scheduled to wind down in 2028, which complicates planning for satellite operators.
The transition to Starship is challenging because Starship is much larger but still unproven, competing vehicles like Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan are not flying regularly, and new entrants such as Rocket Lab’s Neutron are not yet operational. Some orbital data center startups have even considered building their own rockets in response to launch risk and cost.
Starcloud’s long‑term plan depends on Starship reducing launch costs enough to make an orbital inference layer competitive with terrestrial data centers. Johnston said he remains confident SpaceX can demonstrate quick, frequent reusability for Starship.
This week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his company will delay an attempt to catch a returning Starship for a few months and expects to attempt a re‑flight at the end of this year or in early 2027.
“Obviously if we can’t book any SpaceX launch capacity in 2029, that will be challenging for us,” Johnston added.
Near‑term launch plans and satellite fleet
In the near term Starcloud is focused on launching two of its new generation 8 kW compute satellites, called Starcloud‑2, as rideshare payloads in 2027. These spacecraft will perform orbital inference tasks for customers that include U.S. government agencies.
Starcloud is considering purchasing a dedicated Falcon 9 launch for additional spacecraft and signing contracts with other providers to support future missions.
Investors and Nvidia partnership
The $250 million extension was led by Manhattan West Ventures and included participation from Nvidia and Cisco. A person familiar with the deal said Nvidia invested $25 million in Starcloud. Other investors named in the round include Benchmark, EQT, Soma, NFX, 776, Cedar Capital, Goanna Capital, and Standard Capital.
Johnston points to Nvidia’s investment as an important validation of Starcloud’s technical position in the emerging space compute market. Starcloud is the only known company currently operating an Nvidia H100 data center GPU in orbit, and the first to train a model on that hardware; most other space GPUs are designed for edge processing.
Starcloud is sharing operational learnings with Nvidia as the chipmaker develops its first space‑purpose GPU, the Vera Rubin Space‑1 chip.
Vera Rubin Space‑1 plans and manufacturing site
The space‑ready GPU has not been built yet, but Starcloud hopes to fly it in late 2028. Johnston said engineers are tracking several key design tradeoffs: the relationship between chip operating temperature and radiator size, placement of radiation shielding, and the ruggedization required for surviving launch environments.
The company currently employs about 25 people and is building production lines in a 100,000 square foot facility in Woodinville, Washington, near where SpaceX and Amazon manufacture satellites for communications networks.
Why this matters
Starcloud’s funding extension and investments in manufacturing and launch contracting illustrate how dependent emerging orbital compute companies are on reliable, affordable launch capacity. The startup’s ability to scale will hinge not only on satellite performance but on securing the launch cadence and economics needed to compete with terrestrial data centers.
