Former Actress Bridgit Mendler Has Founded A Space Comms Start-Up

The career of a former Disney actor has taken off—but not in the way you’d expect.

Bridget Mendler, who rose to fame with her role on Disney Channel’s “Good Luck Charlie,” founded a space communications start-up with two others that has just received $6 million in funding.

Mendler is the CEO of Northwood Space in El Segundo, California, and her husband, Griffin Cleverly, is the chief technology officer. Engineer Shaurya Luthra is the head of software. Cleverly and Luthra are both veterans of Lockheed Martin, a well-known aerospace and arms company. The three founded the company in October 2023.

Northwood is aiming to “expand space access” by using shared ground infrastructure, Mendler posted Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“The vision is a data highway between Earth and space,” Mendler told CNBC. “Space is getting easier along so many different dimensions but still the actual exercise of sending data to and from space is difficult. You have difficulty finding an access point for contacting your satellite.”

The 31-year-old CEO, who also starred in “Wizards of Waverly Place” and “Lemonade Mouth,” has graduated with multiple degrees from the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School since seemingly moving on from her acting career.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us but that’s the fun part. If you like building quickly and seeing your work deployed in locations around the globe with real impact, we want you at Northwood,” Mendler said on X.

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