Starcloud raises $250M extension to Series A for orbital AI inference satellites

Starcloud, a startup developing satellites capable of performing AI inference in orbit, announced a $250 million extension to its March Series A funding round, bringing the total Series A to $420 million and valuing the company at $2.3 billion. The additional capital will be used to expand manufacturing capacity and advance its largest orbital data center spacecraft, Starcloud-3, which is intended to launch on SpaceX’s Starship rocket.

The company has requested permission from the FCC to operate 88,000 spacecraft, reflecting its ambition to scale orbital compute infrastructure. CEO Philip Johnston emphasized the urgency of securing launch capacity, noting that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 program is scheduled to end in 2028 and that launch availability is constrained. "One of the biggest costs is now on securing your launch capacity…launch is pretty constrained right now," Johnston told TechCrunch.

Starcloud plans to launch two of its next-generation 8 kW compute satellites, dubbed Starcloud-2, on rideshare flights in 2027 to perform orbital inference tasks for customers including U.S. government agencies. The company is also considering dedicated Falcon 9 launches and contracts with other providers to support future missions.

The funding round was led by Manhattan West Ventures and included participation from Nvidia and Cisco, with Nvidia contributing $25 million. Other investors included Benchmark, EQT, Soma, NFX, 776, Cedar Capital, Goanna Capital, and Standard Capital. Johnston highlighted Nvidia’s investment as validation of Starcloud’s technical progress, noting that Starcloud is the only company currently operating an Nvidia H100 terrestrial data center GPU in orbit and the first to train a model using it.

Starcloud is sharing its orbital AI inference learnings with Nvidia as the chipmaker develops its first purpose-built space GPU, the Vera Rubin Space-1 chip, which the company hopes to fly into orbit by late 2028. The startup is also building a 100,000-square-foot production facility in Woodinville, Washington, near facilities used by SpaceX and Amazon for satellite manufacturing.