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More than a decade ago, millions of kids knew Bridgit Mendler as Teddy Duncan, the big sister who recorded video diaries for her baby sister on Disney Channel’s “Good Luck Charlie.” Today, Mendler works as the CEO of a company that builds the antennas linking satellites to Earth, and investors just valued it at $2 billion.
Northwood Space, the company she co-funded in 2022, raised $375 million in a new funding round that valued it at $2 billion, as Axios reported.
The funding round that defined Northwood Space as a $2 billion company
The round in which Northwood achieved the $2 billion mark was led by Andreessen Horowitz and DJF Growth, and investors such as In-Q-Tel also participated.
It is the company’s second big round this year. The first was in early 2026, when Northwood raised $100 million and won a contract worth nearly $50 million with the U.S. Space Force to help modernize its satellite control network.
Two years earlier, in 2024, Northwood Space had raised $6.3 million in its first funding round.
What does Bridgit Mendler’s company build?
Northwood does not build rockets but instead builds the ground stations and antennas that let satellites send data back to Earth.
The need for their products is growing fast. In 2020 there were about 3,500 operational satellites. Today there are more than 17,000, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
Traditional ground stations use large dishes that move mechanically and take months to build. Northwood’s antennas can track several satellites at once without moving parts and can be set up in hours.
The Northwood Space growth
The company, based in Torrance, California, has 140 employees and plans to hire 400 more. It is also building a 180,000-square-foot facility in El Segundo, California, designed to produce hundreds of antennas, according to Northwood.
Northwood already operates five ground sites. Mendler has explained that the company often places them at data centers to provide them with everything they need.
From Disney to Harvard and MIT
Before space business, Mendler was a familiar face on Disney Channel, with roles in Good Luck Charlie and Wizards of Waverly Place. She later left acting behind, studied at Harvard and MIT, and co-funded Northwood with her husband and two technical partners.
Her past still draws attention, but she is focused on a hard problem. “Space is just hard, and executing against missions is really technically complex,” she told Fortune in August.
Mendler sees a big opportunity in a market where the number of satellites keeps growing: “If you can accomplish how hard it is, it’s like there’s this pot of gold at the end of some rainbow,” she told Fortune.