Philip Johnston
Philip Johnston is Co-Founder & CEO at Fermi Explorer and Starcloud, and serves as Executive Officer and Director at Lumen Orbit, Inc. He founded Starcloud, a startup that is still running, and has expertise in building data centers in space.
Starcloud raises $250M Series A extension from Nvidia and Cisco Investments, valued at $2.3B to build AI data centers in orbit
Starcloud raised a $250 million extension to its Series A, bringing total funding to $450 million and a $2.3 billion valuation to pursue AI-powered data centers in orbit with backing from Nvidia and Cisco Investments.
Starcloud Raises $250M Series A Extension Led by Manhattan West, Valuing Company at $2.3B; Nvidia Joins Investors
Redmond-based Starcloud raised $250 million in a Series A extension led by Manhattan West, valuing the company at $2.3 billion and bringing total capital raised to $450 million since its 2024 founding. The company, which launched the first Nvidia H100 GPU to orbit on Starcloud-1 in November 2025, is partnering with Nvidia on the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module to deploy more space-rated GPUs and scale AI compute using orbital data centers.
Starcloud Raises $250M Extension, Valued at $2.3B, Funds Starcloud-3 and Manufacturing as It Secures Launch Capacity
Starcloud raised a $250M Series A extension (bringing the round to $420M and valuing the company at $2.3B) to build larger manufacturing capacity and its Starcloud-3 orbital AI data center, while securing launch capacity as SpaceX phases out Falcon 9 and Starship faces delays. Investors include Manhattan West Ventures, Nvidia (which invested $25M), Cisco and others; Starcloud operates Nvidia H100 GPUs in orbit and plans to fly Nvidia's Vera Rubin Space-1 chip by late 2028.
By Philip
Philip Johnston announces Starcloud’s $170M Series A at $1.1B valuation to build space data centers
Starcloud raised a $170M Series A at a $1.1B valuation to advance development of space-based data centers, funding their third satellite aimed at making AI inference cost-competitive with Earth centers after deploying Starcloud-1 which trained an LLM in space.
Philip Johnston announces: "Starcloud is growing!"
Philip Johnston posted a first-party announcement titled "Starcloud is growing!" indicating that Starcloud is expanding.
Organizations
See all 12-
Fermi Explorer Mission Co-Founder & CEO 2026–present · current
-
Lumen Orbit Executive Officer, Director 2025–present · current
-
Starcloud Co-Founder & CEO 2024–present · current
Education
-
Y Combinator Co-Founder & CEO of Starcloud (YC S24) · 2024
-
Harvard University MPA, John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS), National Security & Technology · 2017–2019
-
The Wharton School MBA · 2016–2018
-
INSEAD MBA exchange student specializing in new venture strategy · 2017
-
CFA Institute CFA Charterholder, First time passes · 2014–2016
-
Columbia University MA, Applied Mathematics · 2009–2010
-
University of Nottingham 1st Class BSc (Hons), Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics · 2005–2008
