TORRANCE – November 02, 2026 -- Northwood Space Corp. has closed a $375 million Series C equity round to expand its shared, multi-orbit ground network for commercial, U.S. government and allied satellite operators. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and DFJ Growth co-led the round. Alpine Space Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, Stepstone Activate and In-Q-Tel (IQT) also participated.
HSBC Innovation Banking is providing a separate multi-year credit facility for working capital and network expansion. Its size was not disclosed. The equity proceeds will go toward delivery on existing contracts, hiring and the global network buildout.
Northwood deployed six multi-orbit sites in under nine months
Since its Series B less than nine months ago, the company has deployed six multi-orbit-capable sites on two continents. It also opened a 185,000-square-foot headquarters and factory in Torrance in September 2026, expanding its manufacturing footprint more than fivefold. Headcount has reached more than 140. Northwood plans to add 400 jobs in Torrance and Washington, DC over three years across RF engineering, manufacturing, software and site operations.
Satellite count rises from 3,000 to 14,000 while ground capacity lags
Northwood frames the investment around a ground-segment bottleneck. Active satellites grew from about 3,000 in 2020 to more than 14,000 by the end of 2025, with tens of thousands more projected by 2030. Ground infrastructure built for an earlier era has not kept pace, the company says.
Modular antennas cut site buildout to three months
Northwood designs and manufactures its own antennas in Torrance. Portal phased arrays handle command and control, and Prism high-throughput dishes handle payload data. At full production the company can build hundreds of antennas per year. Each system ships by standard freight and needs only flat ground, power and fiber.
A new site takes three months rather than years, and new antennas go from truck arrival to live links in three to four hours. Operators book capacity through an API to search, reserve, update and cancel passes. They avoid spending millions of dollars on dedicated ground stations. Northwood also sells antenna systems directly to select customers.
Proprietary software combines multiple antennas into larger effective apertures. In one milestone, the company arrayed 10 Portals to match the receive performance of a 20-foot dish.
Space Force prototype demonstrates command capacity to geostationary orbit
Northwood delivered dedicated satellite command capacity as a service to geostationary orbit in a prototype for the U.S. Space Force. The demonstration included a full-duplex link to a government GEO satellite from a Portal phased-array site, building on earlier LEO demonstrations.
Prism, a parabolic dish built for multi-gigabit links, has been released. Together with Portal, it is intended to take the network to global coverage, with sites capable of 100+ Gbps in high-demand regions by the end of 2027. Northwood has also added customers and contracts across U.S. government agencies, commercial new-space operators and traditional satellite operators. It did not disclose contract values.
CEO Bridgit Mendler said the funding lets the company "scale that network." Katherine Boyle of a16z, a Northwood board director, said the firm has backed the company in every round since seed.
Northwood plans to announce several site and network expansions in the first half of 2027.