space-force
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The Recruiter and the Rocket Scientist Funding America's Hard Tech
A recruiter who once staffed early Snap and Tinder teamed up with a rocket engineer to fund the companies most VCs can't read a spec sheet for - and got the Space Force to sign first.
True Anomaly
True Anomaly is a Colorado-based space defense company building the hardware and software to operate, defend, and win in contested orbit. Its flagship Jackal autonomous orbital vehicle - a highly maneuverable, refrigerator-sized spacecraft - is paired with Mosaic, a full-stack mission autonomy and command-and-control platform. Founded in 2022 by Air Force and Space Force veterans, the company sells primarily to the U.S. Space Force and Department of the Air Force, has raised more than $1 billion across four rounds, and is valued at $2.2 billion after its April 2026 Series D.
Northwood Space
Northwood Space is an El Segundo, California company building the ground side of the space economy: rapidly manufactured, software-defined phased-array ground stations that pull data down from satellites. Its flagship product, Portal, electronically steers beams to track many satellites at once instead of mechanically pointing a single dish, which the company argues removes the bottleneck choking modern satellite constellations. Founded in 2023 by CEO Bridgit Mendler, CTO Griffin Cleverly, and head of software Shaurya Luthra, Northwood has raised $136.4M total, including a $100M Series B in January 2026, and holds a $49.8M U.S. Space Force contract to modernize the Satellite Control Network.