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Dunamu's investment subsidiary, Dunamu and Partners, said Monday that it has invested in Starcloud, a U.S. space data center startup. Dunamu and Partners is the only Korean investor in this round.
This round is worth $250 million (331.1 billion won). It was led by Manhattan West Ventures, with participation from NVIDIA, Cisco Investment, Benchmark, EQT, and others. Starcloud's cumulative funding amount is $450 million (approximately 600 billion won), and its post-investment corporate valuation is assessed at $2.3 billion.
Starcloud is a space data center company founded in 2024 by engineers from SpaceX Starlink and Airbus. It aims to address the challenges of expanding ground-based data centers, which are difficult due to issues such as power grid connection, site acquisition, and cooling water requirements amid surging AI computing demand.
The company is currently developing data center infrastructure that leverages the space environment. It employs a method of securing power using solar energy and dissipating waste heat into outer space without the need for cooling water. To this end, it is developing data center satellites equipped with solar panels, radiation shielding devices, and thermal control systems designed for the space environment.
The company has also conducted proof-of-concept operations. 'Starcloud-1,' a 60kg-class satellite launched in November last year, operated an NVIDIA H100 GPU in low Earth orbit. The company explained that it loaded Google's open model 'Gemma' to perform inference and utilized observation data from satellite radar company Capella Space for detecting distressed ships and wildfires.
Starcloud has applied to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for operational approval, aiming to build an orbital computing infrastructure consisting of 88,000 satellites and 20GW of capacity. The investment funds are expected to be used for building a production line for the next-generation data center satellite 'Starcloud-3' and expanding manufacturing capabilities.
Philip Johnston, CEO of Starcloud, stated, "Korea is one of the markets that rapidly adopts AI services," adding, "We will expand opportunities for collaboration with Korean companies in the future."
Lee Kang-jun, head of Dunamu and Partners, said, "Starcloud is a company realizing space data centers based on its technological capabilities and execution power," adding, "We expect this investment to serve as an opportunity to expand collaborations between domestic companies and global cutting-edge technology firms."
Dunamu and Partners invests in deep tech companies both domestically and internationally. Its major portfolio companies include Inoklas, Air Medical, Rebellions, Kraft Technologies, Travel Wallet, and Korea Credit Data, with a cumulative investment amount of 233 billion won.
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