Starcloud, a U.S.-based space compute startup, has just raised $170 million in Series A funding. The private company plans to use the capital to build more data centers in space as it develops its Starcloud 2 and Starcloud 3 satellites. The new round has pushed the startup’s market value to roughly $1.1 billion, making it Y Combinator’s fastest unicorn, just 17 months after demo day.
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New trading tool for NVDA bearsStarcloud Aims to Launch More Satellites in Orbit
Reports reveal that venture capital firms Benchmark and EQT Ventures led Starcloud’s $170 million Series A. With this, the Nvidia (NVDA) backed company has now raised $200 million in total, including earlier support from Andreessen Horowitz scouts and In-Q-Tel.
Starcloud wants to build solar-powered data centers in space because running huge AI systems on Earth is becoming too difficult and expensive. Its first satellite, Starcloud-1, was launched in November 2025 and carried a powerful Nvidia GPU. It trained an AI model in space for the first time and also analyzed data from Capella Space radar satellites.
The next satellite, Starcloud-2, is expected to launch later in 2026. It will include multiple Nvidia GPUs, an AWS server, a bitcoin mining computer, and the largest cooling system ever put on a private satellite.
Looking further ahead, the third satellite, Starcloud-3, will be larger and more powerful. It is designed to work with SpaceX’s Starship system and may produce energy at very low costs, about five cents per kilowatt-hour.
AI Energy Problems Drive Starcloud Orbital Expansion
Data centers on Earth continue to face limitations. They need more electricity than the power grid can supply. They also rely on water for cooling. At the same time, building new facilities takes longer due to delays.
Starcloud aims to solve these problems by putting more computers in orbit. By doing this, satellites in space can use sunlight for constant power, and the vacuum allows them to cool naturally.
Starcloud has already made progress, including launching the first orbital GPU and training AI in space. These achievements help the company overcome the resource limits faced on Earth. Additionally, the latest funding could help push the company closer to running commercially and offering costs that rival those of ground-based data centers.
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