From Disney Star to Space CEO: Bridgit Mendler’s New Space Startup Takes Off Backed by Founders Fund and a16z
With a combined 5 million followers across Instagram and Twitter, Bridgit Mendler has made a name for herself as an actress, singer, and songwriter.
Her next act? Space tech CEO.
On Monday, Mendler announced a $6.3 million Seed round for her startup Northwood Space, led by heavyweights Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz.
Northwood Space aims to build a data highway between Earth and space.
Delian Asparouhov, a fellow space CEO and excited investor in Northwood, explained, “Today’s ground station infrastructure is so archaic. Currently, we are able to communicate with W-1 for ~15 mins every hour and a half. With Northwood, we’d be connected to W-1 24/7!”
So, how did a Disney star become a space tech CEO?
After a childhood career in acting and music, Mendler went to USC, where she studied Anthropology. Afterward, she concurrently worked toward her JD at Harvard Law School and PhD at MIT. Notably, on her LinkedIn, Mendler was the Harvard Space Law Society co-president from 2022 to 2023.
Mendler is joined by two co-founders, her husband and CTO, Griffin Cleverly, and the startup’s head of software, Shaurya Luthra. Cleverly and Luthra overlapped at Lockheed Martin. The former had a stint at the Space Vector Corporation, and the latter worked at Capella Space most recently.
The company operates out of El Segundo, California, and they are actively hiring for several engineering roles at the time of this post.
