---
type: claim
domain: space-development
description: "YC S24 startup launched an H100 in orbit 21 months after founding and trained the first LLM in space but has raised only $34M against an 88,000-satellite vision while depending on SpaceX who filed for 1M competing satellites"
confidence: experimental
source: "Astra, web research compilation including CNBC, GeekWire, DCD, IEEE Spectrum, TechCrunch February 2026"
created: 2026-02-17
depends_on:
- orbital data centers are the most speculative near-term space application but the convergence of AI compute demand and falling launch costs attracts serious players
- on-orbit processing of satellite data is the proven near-term use case for space compute because it avoids bandwidth and thermal bottlenecks simultaneously
- SpaceX vertical integration across launch broadband and manufacturing creates compounding cost advantages that no competitor can replicate piecemeal
related:
- Orbital data center deployment follows a three-tier launch vehicle activation sequence (rideshare → dedicated → constellation) where each tier unlocks an order-of-magnitude increase in compute scale
reweave_edges:
- Orbital data center deployment follows a three-tier launch vehicle activation sequence (rideshare → dedicated → constellation) where each tier unlocks an order-of-magnitude increase in compute scale|related|2026-04-04
- Starcloud|supports|2026-04-04
supports:
- Starcloud
---

# Starcloud is the first company to operate a datacenter-grade GPU in orbit but faces an existential dependency on SpaceX for launches while SpaceX builds a competing million-satellite constellation

## Company Overview

Starcloud (formerly Lumen Orbit) was founded in January 2024, Y Combinator Summer 2024 batch. Rebranded from Lumen Orbit in February 2025. Team of approximately 5 people as of late 2025.

**Key team:** Philip Johnston (CEO) — former McKinsey, Harvard/Wharton/Columbia. Ezra Feilden (CTO) — decade of satellite engineering, former Airbus, PhD in deployable structures. Adi Oltean (Chief Engineer) — former SpaceX Starlink network team, former Microsoft, 25+ patents. Bailey Montano (Lead Mechanical) — former SpaceX Raptor/Merlin, former Helion Energy.

## Funding & Backers

Total raised: approximately $27-34M across 8 rounds. Key investors: NFX, Y Combinator, In-Q-Tel (CIA-backed — signals national security interest), NVIDIA Inception Program, 468 Capital, scout funds from a16z and Sequoia.

## What They Have Built

**Starcloud-1** (launched November 2, 2025 on Falcon 9): ~60 kg satellite at 325 km carrying a single NVIDIA H100 — the first datacenter-grade GPU in space, 100x more powerful than any GPU previously operated in orbit. Demonstrated: trained NanoGPT on Shakespeare, ran Google Gemma, processed Capella Space SAR data as customer workload.

**Starcloud-2** (planned October 2026): Multiple H100s plus NVIDIA Blackwell B200, ~100x the power generation of Starcloud-1, running Crusoe Cloud for public cloud workloads, reportedly first satellite with AWS Outposts hardware.

**FCC filing** (February 2026): Up to 88,000 satellites for orbital AI compute.

## The SpaceX Dependency

The most interesting strategic risk. SpaceX controls Starcloud's access to orbit (launch pricing), its data routing infrastructure (Starlink), and is building a directly competing product (million-satellite compute constellation). This mirrors the classic platform-as-competitor dynamic from cloud computing — except the platform literally decides whether your satellites reach space.

## Economics

Starcloud projects a 40 MW orbital data center costing $8.2M over ten years versus $167M terrestrial. This comparison is accurate for power and cooling operational costs but deeply misleading as total cost: 25,000 Blackwell servers alone would cost ~$12-13B. The power savings represent 0.007% of total system cost. The real question is whether launch costs drop enough to make orbital deployment competitive on total cost.

## Challenges

The capital gap between $34M raised and 88,000 satellites is astronomical. Consumer GPUs are not designed for space radiation. Scaling from one 60 kg satellite to gigawatt-scale arrays is multiple orders of magnitude.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[orbital data centers are the most speculative near-term space application but the convergence of AI compute demand and falling launch costs attracts serious players]] — Starcloud is the company most concretely advancing this thesis
- [[space-based computing at datacenter scale is blocked by thermal physics because radiative cooling in vacuum requires surface areas that grow faster than compute density]] — the physics constraint Starcloud must solve at scale
- [[on-orbit processing of satellite data is the proven near-term use case for space compute because it avoids bandwidth and thermal bottlenecks simultaneously]] — Starcloud's Capella workload validates the near-term use case
- [[SpaceX vertical integration across launch broadband and manufacturing creates compounding cost advantages that no competitor can replicate piecemeal]] — SpaceX controls launch, networking, and is building a competing product

Topics:
- [[space exploration and development]]