Check out Valley of Depth #042 on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Bridgit Mendler took an unconventional path to founding a space infrastructure company, but it led her to one of the industry’s most overlooked bottlenecks: the ground systems connecting satellites to Earth. Now, she’s building Northwood to modernize that critical layer of the space economy, the part that doesn’t get the headlines but matters as much as anything happening above it.
Northwood recently announced its new Prism product, and we get into the business model, the competitive landscape, the government bet, and one of the most critical questions: if Starlink and Kuiper have already built their own versions of what Northwood is selling, who’s actually buying?
We cover:
- Why ground infrastructure is the overlooked bottleneck in the space economy
- The announcement of Prism and what it means for Northwood’s ambitions beyond its first product
- The claim that Northwood will rival a terrestrial internet exchange by 2028
- The Space Force contract and what the path to a second one looks like
- Cell tower or cloud bill: how Northwood actually makes money
- Her future vision for the industry and the infrastructure bet behind it