{"id":17140,"date":"2025-02-27T01:54:04","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T17:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/lumen-orbit-changes-its-name-to-starcloud-and-raises-10m-for-space-data-centers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-27T01:54:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T17:54:04","slug":"lumen-orbit-changes-its-name-to-starcloud-and-raises-10m-for-space-data-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/lumen-orbit-changes-its-name-to-starcloud-and-raises-10m-for-space-data-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Lumen Orbit changes its name to Starcloud and raises $10M for space data centers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-860726\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">An artist\u2019s conception shows data-center spacecraft being added to an orbital array. (Starcloud via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Redmond, Wash.-based Starcloud got its start just last year under a different name \u2014 Lumen Orbit \u2014 but the newly renamed company is already filling out its seed funding round with $10 million in fresh investment for space-based data centers.<\/p>\n<p>The new influx of capital comes after December\u2019s announcement that the startup brought in $11 million from investors including NFX, Y Combinator (or YC, for short), FUSE, Soma Capital and scout funds from Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. Starcloud graduated from Y Combinator\u2019s summer cohort last year.<\/p>\n<p>The additional funding comes from previous seed investors and several new venture capital firms in the form of a simplified agreement for future equity, or SAFE. If you add up the $11 million and the $10 million, \u201cit can be thought of as a $21M seed, which is one of the highest-ever seed rounds for a company coming out of YC,\u201d Philip Johnston, Starcloud\u2019s CEO and one of its founders, told GeekWire in an email.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston said Starcloud doesn\u2019t intend to identify the new investors until a Series A funding round takes place.<\/p>\n<p>Starcloud\u2019s big idea is to place a network of megawatt-scale computer servers in Earth orbit, powered by grids of solar panels that could stretch as much as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) in width. <\/p>\n<p>Such space-based facilities would offer alternatives to terrestrial data centers that are taking up increasing amounts of territory, gobbling up increasing amounts of electrical power, and stirring up increasing levels of controversy.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Starcloud - 5 GW Data Centers in Space, Landscape - September 2024\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ichlfqHF6XM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Space-based data centers could play a key role in processing the massive amounts of imagery and other data provided by Earth observation satellites. Doing the computational heavy lifting in space would reduce the bandwidth requirements for Earth-to-ground data transmission.<\/p>\n<p>Starcloud emerged from stealth a little less than a year ago when it announced a $2.4 million pre-seed investment round. The $21 million in fresh funding \u201callows us to accelerate our plans to build large data centers in space, and means that we are funded through at least the next two launches,\u201d Johnston said.<\/p>\n<p>Johnston said Starcloud\u2019s 132-pound (60-kilogram) demonstrator satellite is destined to be launched into low Earth orbit this summer by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Bandwagon 4 rideshare mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will be running 100x more powerful GPU compute than has ever been operated in space, with top-of-the-line, data-center-grade terrestrial NVIDIA GPUs on board,\u201d he said. NVIDIA is providing the chips at a discount through its startup-friendly Inception program. <\/p>\n<p>Johnston said the demonstrator satellite will help Starcloud test \u201ctraining, inference and edge compute workloads for other satellites.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"475\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3-630x475.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-860763\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3-630x475.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3-1260x950.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3-768x579.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3-1536x1158.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/250225-starcloud3.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Starcloud\u2019s demonstrator satellite is being prepared for launch. (Courtesy of Philip Johnston via LinkedIn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Johnston is a former associate at McKinsey &amp; Co. who also co-founded an e-commerce venture called Opontia. Starcloud\u2019s other founders are chief technology officer&nbsp;Ezra Feilden, whose resume includes engineering experience at Oxford Space Systems and Airbus Defense and Space; and chief engineer&nbsp;Adi Oltean, who worked as a principal software engineer at SpaceX\u2019s Starlink facility in Redmond, Wash.<\/p>\n<p>The Starcloud team currently has five members, including lead mechanical engineer Bailey Monta\u00f1o, who worked previously at Helion Energy and SpaceX. Johnston said he expects the size of the team to double in the months ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStarcloud\u201d follows in the footsteps of other starry names, ranging from SpaceX\u2019s Starship and Boeing\u2019s Starliner to Gravitics\u2019 StarMax space modules and the Starlab space station planned by Voyager Space and Airbus. But Johnston said the principal reason behind his company\u2019s name shift is to head off any potential confusion with another tech company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cApparently, Lumen Technologies has the right to \u2018Lumen\u2019 for data centers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows data-center spacecraft being added to an orbital array. (Starcloud via YouTube) Redmond, Wash.-based Starcloud got its start just last year under a different name \u2014 Lumen Orbit \u2014 but the newly renamed company is already filling out its seed funding round with $10 million in fresh investment for space-based data centers. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4374,4333,20,442,496,4329],"class_list":["post-17140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-data-centers","tag-lumen-orbit","tag-satellite","tag-satellites","tag-starcloud","tag-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}