Starcloud Secures $21M Seed Funding, CEO to Unveil Space Data Center Vision at WEF Davos

Philip Johnston, CEO and Co-Founder of Starcloud, announced his invitation to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos for 2025, where he plans to discuss the company's pioneering work on data centers in space. "I'm excited to share about @Starcloud_Inc1 and data centers in space! 🚀 Thanks, World Economic Forum! @WEF," Johnston stated on social media. This appearance follows a significant $21 million seed funding round that positions Starcloud at the forefront of orbital computing.

Starcloud, formerly known as Lumen Orbit, is developing megawatt-scale data centers designed for deployment in Earth's orbit, with ambitions to scale to gigawatt capacities. The company's innovative approach aims to address the escalating energy demands of artificial intelligence workloads and the limitations of terrestrial data centers. By leveraging the abundant solar energy and passive cooling capabilities of space, Starcloud seeks to offer a sustainable alternative.

The $21 million seed round included investments from prominent entities such as Y Combinator, NFX, In-Q-Tel, the NVIDIA Inception Program, and the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers. This substantial backing underscores investor confidence in Starcloud's vision and its potential to revolutionize data infrastructure. The company's first GPU demonstrator satellite, equipped with 100x more powerful GPUs than previously operated in space, is slated for launch in late 2025.

Johnston, a second-time founder with a background at McKinsey & Company and Opontia, co-founded Starcloud with Ezra Feilden, CTO, and Adi Oltean, Chief Engineer, both bringing extensive experience from Airbus Defense & Space, Oxford Space Systems, SpaceX, and Microsoft. Starcloud projects that orbital data centers could eventually emit ten times less CO2 than their Earth-based counterparts, offering significant environmental benefits. The company aims to deploy 40-megawatt orbital data centers by the early 2030s, featuring solar arrays spanning several kilometers.

The invitation to the prestigious WEF Davos meeting highlights the growing recognition of space-based solutions for global technological challenges. Starcloud's participation as a 2025 Technology Pioneer further solidifies its position as a key innovator in the aerospace and computing sectors. The company anticipates that within a decade, most new data centers could be located in space, transforming the landscape of digital infrastructure.