• Bridgit Mendler, a former Disney Channel star and performer, is establishing a firm called Northwood Space, which has backers including Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz.
• “The vision is a data highway between Earth and space,” Mendler told CNBC.
• Northwood intends to construct satellite ground stations with mass production and client flexibility in mind.
Mendler, a former Disney Channel star and vocalist known for roles in “Good Luck Charlie,” “Wizards of Waverly Place,” and “The Clique,” has spent the last few years studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School.
Mendler, who grew up in a “engineering household” and worked at the Federal Communications Commission’s new Space Bureau, where she “completely fell in love with space law,” is establishing a new career in the space business as CEO of startup Northwood Space, situated in El Segundo, California.
“The vision is a data highway between Earth and space. Space is getting easier along so many different dimensions but still the actual exercise of sending data to and from space is difficult. You have difficulty finding an access point for contacting your satellite.”
Bridgit Mendler
Instead of building rockets or satellites, Northwood intends to mass-produce ground stations. Ground stations, also known as teleports, are huge, circular antennas that connect satellites in space.
Northwood is already attracting high-profile venture investors, having acquired over $6 million in initial funding from Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and Also Capital.
Mendler cofounded Northwood with her husband, Griffin Cleverly, the startup’s chief technology officer, and Shaurya Luthra, the head of software.
Cleverly and Luthra previously worked as engineers at Lockheed Martin. The former recently worked on communications at Mitre Corporation, while the latter spent nearly four years developing the ground station network for Capella Space, a satellite imagery company.
Northwood is named after a lake in New Hampshire, where Mendler said the idea for the company came to her while spending time with relatives during the Covid-19 pandemic.
