Starcloud, a Redmond-based space infrastructure company, secured $170 million in Series A funding. The company has achieved a valuation of $1.1 billion within 17 months of completing the Y Combinator accelerator program. It has raised $200 million in capital to date to support its goal of building data centers in space.
“The AI revolution is colliding with the physical limits of our terrestrial energy grid. We are quickly running out of places to build new energy projects for data centers on Earth,” Philip Johnston, Starcloud’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “By moving AI compute to space, we unlock access to unlimited solar power and completely remove the energy bottleneck.”
Starcloud’s funding round was led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures. The capital allows the company to scale its orbital infrastructure as it strives to meet commercial demand for more sustainable AI compute solutions. It will advance the design and build of its Starcloud-3 satellites, establish a manufacturing facility, expand its workforce and procure future launch contracts.
