Starcloud Raises $250M to Scale AI Beyond Earth

Starcloud has secured an additional $250 million in funding to accelerate its plans for building orbital data centers. The Series A extension boosts the startup's valuation to $2.3 billion, with a total of $450 million raised so far.

The U.S.-based company aims to leverage continuous solar power and radiative cooling to support large-scale AI compute workloads in space. Founded in 2024 as Lumen Orbit, Starcloud is pioneering orbital data centers with its founders Philip Johnston (CEO), Ezra Feilden (CTO), and Adi Oltean (Chief Engineer). Key investors include Manhattan West, Benchmark, EQT, Nvidia, Cisco Investments, and others.

The company's vision is to move AI processing into orbit, reducing latency by analyzing data closer to its source. Orbital data centers offer advantages over earth-based centers, including no need for complex cooling systems, continuous solar power without weather disruptions, and lower latency for space applications.