Bridgit Mendler

.@NorthwoodSpace recently announced Prism, a new satellite ground antenna to significantly increase its ground station network capacity. @bridgitmendler: "Today, what that looks like is addressing the use cases of today. That's something we fundamentally believe in — let's start with the users that are here now that have capacity shortages. So we start out in frequency bands like S, X and Ka. Over the next two years, we're going to be driving to 100 Gbps on that same antenna formulation. And then ultimately driving towards capacity that can kind of rival an example of an internet peering exchange."

.@bridgitmendler on the founding thesis of @NorthwoodSpace. "We really were recognizing the same problem, that networking for the space economy is really what drives its value. And there's a significant bottleneck, and that bottleneck actually is not in space. It's actually on Earth. The way that you actually solve that networking problem for space is through introducing a model that gets you to the scale that you need, not just for one individual company or a mission, but for the industry overall." Full "Valley of Depth" episode in comments 👇

Full episode 👇 YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=an6xBj… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3GW0LP… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Today we're expanding our network to support the things spacecraft actually need to do now: high-volume enterprise backhaul, direct-to-cellular communications, compute in space. northwoodspace.io/blog/prismhigh…

We are building solar + battery power plants, off-grid to start. 100% renewable. 99.9% availability. Grateful to our early backer @dfjgrowth. Read more about Ambrosia from DFJ: dfjgrowth.com/story/ambrosia…

The space economy has a ground infrastructure problem. You can build a satellite and launch it faster than you can connect with it from Earth. Bridgit Mendler is building Northwood to fix that — deploying ground infrastructure in 3 months instead of 3 years. She joins a16'z Erik Torenberg to talk about vertical integration, the $50M Space Force contract, and why space is like the early internet: 00:00 Introduction 6:10 The ground segment bottleneck 10:06 Pandemic antenna origins 13:18 Three months, not three years 18:19 Starlink is not a threat 23:48 The space economy market map 29:45 The Space Force contract 36:03 Culture and values @bridgitmendler @eriktorenberg @NorthwoodSpace

The space economy has a ground infrastructure problem. You can build a satellite and launch it faster than you can connect with it from Earth. Bridgit Mendler is building Northwood to fix that — deploying ground infrastructure in 3 months instead of 3 years. She joins a16'z Erik Torenberg to talk about vertical integration, the $50M Space Force contract, and why space is like the early internet: 00:00 Introduction 6:10 The ground segment bottleneck 10:06 Pandemic antenna origins 13:18 Three months, not three years 18:19 Starlink is not a threat 23:48 The space economy market map 29:45 The Space Force contract 36:03 Culture and values @bridgitmendler @eriktorenberg @NorthwoodSpace

More friends, more fun at @CapitalAlso! We’re thrilled to welcome @ILIVETWICE, known to most as “Shaur”, as our newest Venture Partner. We first met Shaur as part of our initial investment in @NorthwoodSpace in 2023. When we asked a mutual friend about him, the friend was unequivocal—“Shaur’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Also the kindest.” Close to 3 years since that first interaction, our lived experience has proven that friend’s assessment remarkably accurate. In that time, he helped take Northwood from inception through a $100M Series B, scaling the org from 3 co-founders to over 60 FTEs. Last year, the market also took notice of his contributions, with him receiving the Matthew Isakowitz Rising Star award and being named to Forbes 30 Under 30. From day one Shaur’s been generous with his time and network, sharp and thoughtful with his technical and market insights, and a staunch supporter of Also and our broader community. Most importantly, he’s values-aligned with everything we stand for–high integrity, low ego, and finding joy in the daily grind of solving hard problems. Bringing him into the fold in a more intentional way was a no brainer. Shaur joins @WillBruey, Colin, @jimcox25, and @danielaperlein, our incredible group of Venture Partners whose lived experience helps them understand the challenges and complexity of building in Hard Tech. They’re an amazing resource to us and our portfolio companies as they navigate hiring, fundraising, strategy, and manufacturing at scale. A fun fact about Shaur: at one point he served as a volunteer firefighter, graduating as valedictorian of his fire academy class – a small glimpse into the kind of intensity, commitment, and service mindset he brings to everything he does. Welcome to the team, Shaur!

We’re back with round 2! Announcing @CapitalAlso’s second fund, $50M to catalyze founders solving hard problems Was a ton of fun breaking the news with @tbpn @jordihays @johncoogan 🙏 We’ll share more detail tomorrow, but for now we made this graphic to celebrate 🚀

.@NorthwoodSpace closing a $100M series B to build out ground infrastructure to support space ops and data: "In recent times, because space has sped up so much, it actually takes longer to get your ground infrastructure set up then it takes to build a satellite and to launch it" -Co-Founder & CEO @bridgitmendler @CNBC @CNBCWEX cnb.cx/4jZBD3f