- $100 million Series B funding led by Washington Harbour Partners with Andreessen Horowitz, backing Northwood’s expansion of next-gen ground infrastructure.
- New U.S. Space Force contract worth nearly $50 million underscores growing demand for scalable satellite operations systems.
What happened: the funding will be used to expand Northwood’s ground station network and scale production of its phased-array systems
This round of financing is led by Washington Harbour Partners and co led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors include Alpine Space Ventures、Founders Fund、StepStone、Balerion Space Ventures、Fulcrum、Pax And 137 Ventures. Less than a year ago, Northwood had just completed a $30 million Series A financing, bringing its total financing since its establishment to approximately $136 million.
Meanwhile, Northwood also announced that it has signed a $49.8 million contract with the US Space Force to support the upgrade of the Satellite Control Network (SCN). SCN is a critical infrastructure for tracking, commanding, and supporting government and commercial satellite missions.
Northwood’s core product is Portal, a compact multi beam phased array ground station system designed to replace traditional dish antennas for faster and more flexible satellite communication in low orbit, medium orbit, and geostationary orbit. The company has deployed some operational units and plans to significantly increase production and global deployment scale, with the goal of deploying over 82 operational beams at 18 sites worldwide by the end of 2026.
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Why it’s important
With the proliferation of satellite constellations, ground infrastructure – the Earth side systems required for satellites to communicate with operators and users – has become a key bottleneck. Traditional systems are slow to build, expensive to deploy, and difficult to scale, especially in meeting the flexibility requirements of modern commercial and defense missions.
By vertically integrating design, manufacturing, and operations, Northwood positions itself as a cloud like ground network provider, shortening long procurement cycles into rapid software driven deployments. This capability is becoming increasingly attractive to national security clients (such as the US Space Force) and commercial satellite operators who lack resources to build customized ground systems.
Bridgit Mendler’s leadership offers an unusual tech narrative: transitioning from early fame on Disney Channel to co-founding a space infrastructure startup focused on the “quiet side” of space operations. Her journey — bolstered by advanced academic work and strategic venture backing — reflects broader shifts in the space economy that reward solutions addressing the overlooked yet essential glue between orbit and Earth.
With fresh capital and government validation, Northwood is now racing to meet demand from an orbit increasingly crowded with satellites — and to help make space communications both faster and more reliable for the next generation of missions.
