Space is an increasingly crowded place due to the constant deployment of new satellites and is becoming increasingly cramped as the cost of orbiting them drops.
That dynamic is appealing to startup Northwood Space, which has spent the past few years developing a more modern and efficient ground-based communications infrastructure. The startup capitalized on that interest in two ways this week.
The El Segundo, California-based company announced Tuesday that it has closed a $100 million Series B funding round, led by Washington DC firm Washington Harbor Partners (which already on the run of board investment) and co-led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Northwood also won a $49.8 million contract with the United States Space Force to help upgrade what it calls the “satellite control network,” which “handles a variety of space missions that are important to our government” including tracking and controlling GPS satellites, founder and CEO Bridgit Mendler said in a phone call with reporters.
The funding round and government contract are significant milestones for the company, which is only a few years old and only closed a $30 million Series A less than a year ago.
But with so much interest in space technology, hard technology, and defense technology today, Mendler says this is an opportunity for his company to grow responsibly and quickly.
“Well, it happened a lot faster than we thought – you know, two fundraisers in the same year and big capital,” he said. But, he said, “it’s really ready from a production standpoint.”
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Mendler also said the new capital will help Northwood meet its needs, marking an “inflection point in the business.”
“We ask customers to come to us all the time asking for ground solutions, they want us to help them think through ground problems with them, and we don’t want any resource obstacles that block us from being able to support their mission,” she said. “And those resources are purposefully committed to supporting the mission that we’re going to do.”
Part of the attention in Northwood is related to what they are doing – making smaller phased array antenna systems to support or replace older systems that rely on larger dish antennas – remains novel, especially as a vertically integrated toy.
But with the volume of data being transmitted to and from satellites set to continue to grow, it’s an advantage Mendler is keen to press.
“It’s a hard thing to do. You need a lot of risk, a lot of capital. It requires a lot of different skill sets to come together, to be able to really put your head in all the ground (station) problems,” Mendler said. “And yes, it’s a big undertaking to do, and our bet is that if we can do that, if we can think about soil holistically under one roof, then it’s going to generate a ton of value for the industry, and that’s the right model.
This distance already makes sense for today’s prospective commercial customers. Companies like SpaceX and Amazon, which own large satellite internet networks, build and operate their own ground stations. But capacity is limited for other players who usually have to rent space from third-party providers that are not always available.
Northwood CTO Griffin Cleverly expects the expanded capacity — which the new fundraising will help create — will be most valuable to customers who are “printing into large constellations, so maybe from one or two satellites to a dozen or more.”
Currently, Northwood’s “portal” site can handle eight satellite links, he said. However, by the end of 2027, he expects the next-generation Northwood ground station to handle 10 to 12, with the company’s overall network able to communicate with “hundreds” of satellites.
With the Space Force contract, what Northwood is selling is clearly an attractive option for the government.
No wonder the newest branch of the armed forces started with the satellite control network (SCN). By 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted that the Department of Defense has been aware of capacity issues with the SCN since 2011.
“Satellite users who rely on SCN and those interviewed by GAO said that the increased demand, and resulting limitations in system availability, could compromise future missions,” the report said.