US AI Infrastructure Startup StarCloud Raises $250 Million at $2.3 Billion Valuation
Korean firm Doonam Partners was the sole domestic investor in the round aimed at accelerating orbital data center development.
According to ZDNet Korea, StarCloud, a US startup building low-Earth orbit data centers, has completed a $250 million funding round. The round was led by Manhattan West Ventures, with participation from Nvidia, Cisco Investment, Benchmark, and EQT. Doonam Partners, an investment subsidiary of South Korean crypto exchange operator Upbit's parent company Doonam, was the only Korean investor in this round.
Founded in 2024 by engineers from SpaceX Starlink and Airbus, StarCloud aims to address the physical limitations of ground-based data centers, such as power shortages, land constraints, and cooling water scarcity. The company proposes using space environments for 24-hour solar power and radiating waste heat into deep space without coolant, aiming to build the most cost-efficient next-generation compute infrastructure within ten years.
Technically, StarCloud launched its first 60kg satellite, 'StarCloud-1', last November, successfully running an Nvidia H100 GPU in low Earth orbit. It also integrated Google's open model Gemma to analyze real-time radar data from Capella Space, verifying on-orbit inference capabilities for detecting distressed ships and wildfires. The company has applied to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to deploy a constellation of 88,000 satellites with 20GW of orbital compute capacity.
Philip Johnston, CEO of StarCloud, noted that South Korea has the second-highest number of paid ChatGPT users globally, indicating rapid AI adoption and strong demand for compute resources. He expressed hope that Doonam Partners would bridge StarCloud with local partners. Lee Kang-jun, representative of Doonam Partners, emphasized StarCloud's execution capability in attracting talent and capital ahead of big tech firms, stating the investment could open channels for collaboration between global frontier technology and Korean industries.