Tech
Northwood Space secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force contract
Space is an increasingly crowded place thanks to the constant influx of new satellites and it’s only to get more cramped as the cost to get to orbit falls.
Those dynamics have brought attention to startup Northwood Space, which has spent the last few years developing more modern and efficient ground-based communications infrastructure. The startup capitalized on that interest in two ways this week.
The El Segundo, California-based company announced on Tuesday it has closed a $100 million Series B funding round, led by Washington D.C.-based firm Washington Harbour Partners (which has been on a run of space investments) and co-led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Northwood has also secured a $49.8 million contract with the United States Space Force to help upgrade what’s known as the “satellite control network,” which “handles a huge variety of consequential space missions for our government” including tracking and controlling GPS satellites, founder and CEO Bridgit Mendler said on a call with reporters.
The funding round and government contract are major milestones for the company, which is just a few years old and only closed its $30 million Series A less than a year ago.
But with so much interest in funding space tech, hard tech, and defense tech right now, Mendler said this was an opportunity for her company to grow responsibly and quickly.
“Yes, this is happening faster than we thought — you know, two fundraises in the same year and large sums of capital,” she said. But, she pointed out, “that’s really what we’re ready for from a production standpoint.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Mendler also said the fresh capital will help Northwood keep pace with growing demand, marking an “inflection point in the business.”
“We get customers coming to us all the time requiring a ground solution, wanting us to help think through a ground problem with them, and we don’t want there to be a resource constraint that blocks us from being able to support that mission,” she said. “And so the resources were very intentionally brought on at this point to support the missions that that are coming forward for us.”
Part of the attention on Northwood has to do with the fact that what it’s doing — making smaller phased-array antenna systems meant to support or replace older systems that rely on larger dish antennas — remains novel, especially as a vertically-integrated play.
But with the volume of data being transmitted to and from satellites likely to keep growing, it’s an advantage Mendler is keen to press.
“It’s a hard thing to do. It requires a lot of risk, a lot of capital. It requires a lot of diverse skill sets to come together, to be able to really wrap your head around the entire ground [station] problem,” Mendler said. “And so yeah, it’s a big undertaking for us to take, and our bet is that if we can actually do that, if we can really think about ground holistically under one roof, then that produces a ton of value for the industry, and that’s really the right model to have.”
This pitch has made sense for prospective commercial customers for a while now. Companies like SpaceX and Amazon, which have massive satellite internet networks in the works, build and operate their own ground stations. But capacity is constrained for other players who typically have to rent space from third-party providers that may not always have availability.
Northwood CTO Griffin Cleverly expects the expanded capacity — that the new fundraising will help create — will be most valuable to customers who are “scaling into large constellations, so that may be going from like one or two satellites to dozens or more.”
Right now, Northwood’s “portal” sites can handle eight satellite links, he said. By the end of 2027, though, he expects the next-generation of Northwood’s ground stations to handle 10 to 12, with the company’s overall network capable of communicating with “hundreds” of satellites.”
With the Space Force contract, what Northwood is selling has clearly become an attractive option for the government.
It’s not surprising the newest armed forces branch is starting with the satellite control network (SCN), though. In 2023, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted that the Department of Defense has been aware of capacity issues with the SCN since 2011.
“Satellite users who rely on the SCN and whom GAO interviewed said that this increased demand, and resulting limits on system availability, could compromise their missions in the future,” the report stated.
Tech
Uber to buy delivery arm of Turkey’s Getir
Uber has agreed to acquire the delivery business of Turkey’s Getir, once one of the biggest success stories of the country’s startup ecosystem, the company announced on Monday.
The deal will see Uber paying $335 million at the outset to purchase Getir’s food delivery business. The ride-hailing giant will also pay $100 million for a 15% stake in Getir’s grocery, retail, and water delivery business, and said it would complete the acquisition of the division over the next few years.
Uber is buying the business from Getir’s biggest shareholder, the Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. The investment firm was reportedly seeking to sell its stake in the company last year.
The deal comes after a turbulent few years for Getir, which once enjoyed a valuation of $12 billion, that saw the startup scale down its operations massively. The company launched to great traction in 2015, and invested aggressively to expand its operations in the U.S. and Europe, both organically and via acquisitions, especially during the pandemic.
But after the pandemic lockdowns eased, broader consumer demand for food and grocery delivery also wavered, and Getir chose to cut its losses in 2024, shutting shop and laying off thousands of staff in the U.S., U.K., and Europe in order to focus on business back home.
Nearly a year ago, the company went through a struggle for control over a restructuring plan proposed by Mubadala. The plan was opposed by one of Getir’s co-founders, who eventually sued to fight the “illegal coup,” but a Dutch court rejected the founder’s appeals.
The company has raised a total of $2.40 billion so far, according to PitchBook. Documents filed by Getir in court last year show the company valued its group assets at $374 million.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
“This transaction reflects the strength of the business and the progress it has made, particularly over the last year,” Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, deputy group CEO at Mubadala, said in a statement.
Uber said it would combine the new unit’s services with Trendyol Go, a food and grocery delivery service in Turkey that the ride-hail giant bought for $700 million last May. Uber said Getir’s food delivery business alone recorded gross bookings of more than $1 billion in 2025, up 50% from a year earlier.
The deal follows a strong showing by Uber’s delivery business in the fourth quarter, reporting revenue of $4.89 billion, up 30% from a year earlier. The company said Europe, the Middle East, and Asia proved the fastest-growing regions for the business in 2026.
Tech
Discord to roll out age verification next month for full access to its platform
Discord is rolling out age verification globally starting next month, the company announced on Monday. All users will be put into a “teen-appropriate experience” by default unless they prove they’re adults. Age verification will be required to change certain settings and access age-restricted content.
Discord users will need to be confirmed as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting, and only adults can access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands. Additionally, messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and only verified adults can modify this setting.
People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know, and only adults will be able speak onstage in servers.
To complete age verification, users need to either complete a facial age estimation or submit an ID to Discord’s vendor partners. The platform plans to add more options in the future. Discord notes that some users may be asked to use multiple methods when additional information is needed to assign an age group.
The facial age estimation requires video selfies, which Discord says never leave your device. Additionally, the company says IDs submitted to its vendor partners are deleted quickly and, in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.
It’s worth noting that Discord disclosed last October that around 70,000 users may have had sensitive data, such as their government ID photos, exposed after hackers breached a third-party vendor that the platform uses for age-related appeals. The breach reflected digital rights activists’ concerns over the use of age checks as a way to make the internet “safer.”
Discord’s global launch of age verification follows the company’s decision to establish age checks for users in the U.K. and Australia last year.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
“Rolling out teen-by-default settings globally builds on Discord’s existing safety architecture, giving teens strong protections while allowing verified adults flexibility,” said Savannah Badalich, head of product policy at Discord, in a press release. “We design our products with teen safety principles at the core and will continue working with safety experts, policymakers, and Discord users to support meaningful, long term wellbeing for teens on the platform.”
The announcement mirrors similar moves made by other online platforms, reflecting growing international efforts to strengthen child safety. Most recently, Roblox introduced mandatory facial verification for access to chats on its platform. Last July, YouTube launched its age-estimation technology in the U.S. to identify teen users in order to provide a more age-appropriate experience.
Discord’s age-verification changes will begin in early March, and both new and existing users will need to verify their age to access age-restricted content.
Tech
YouTube TV introduces cheaper bundles, including a $65/month sports package
YouTube on Monday introduced lower-priced YouTube TV plans that will allow subscribers to better tailor their plans to their own interests in areas like sports, news, and entertainment. The company said that it will offer more than 10 different plans to choose from, all priced below the $82.99 per month main YouTube TV plan that has access to more than 100 networks. The new plans will start rolling out this week.
While that main plan will not go away, the new plans will allow customers to pick what matters most and what they could do without in return for cost savings.
Among the new plans are a $64.99 per month Sports plan, a Sports + News plan for $71.99 per month, a less expensive Entertainment plan for $54.99 per month, and a $69.99 per month News + Entertainment + Family plan, which includes kids’ content.
The Sports plans include all major broadcasters, plus networks like FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN networks, and ESPN Unlimited. This plan is $18 cheaper per month than the main plan.
YouTube TV’s news channels include CNBC, Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, and Bloomberg, along with other national news channels. Combined with Sports, the package is priced $11 lower per month than the main YouTube TV plan.
The entertainment-only plan is $28 cheaper per month than the main plan, and includes major broadcasters as well as FX, Hallmark, Comedy Central, Bravo, Paramount, Food Network, and HGTV. Families with small kids can add other channels like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Cartoon Network, and PBS Kids for a bit more.
The company is also offering discounts for new subscribers, which could lower the price of certain plans further for either the first few months or the first year. Subscribers will continue to have access to YouTube TV’s unlimited DVR, support for up to six family members on one account, multiview, and more.
Other add-ons like NFL Sunday Ticket + RedZone, HBO Max, and 4K Plus can also be purchased to customize plans further.
The company says all the new plans will roll out over the next several weeks.
Customized packages are now not a new idea in streaming — à la carte options were a key part of the early streaming pioneer Sling TV’s initial offering, for instance. This element of personalization was also one of the factors that was meant to make streaming a better alternative to traditional pay TV, where consumers often ended up paying for channels they didn’t want.
But as streamers added more content, networks, and, in particular, sports programming, the cost of streaming inched back up to compete with cable and linear television. Live TV streamers like YouTube TV may have offered convenience and some savings over still more expensive cable, but it wasn’t exactly affordable anymore.
These new packages hit the market at a time when consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than 11 years, due to fears about the labor market and higher prices, which have made consumers more cautious about their spending.
Sukhie’s Lipstick Trick Is Too Good
Uber to buy delivery arm of Turkey’s Getir
Discord to roll out age verification next month for full access to its platform
Tech
Northwood Space secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force contract
Space is an increasingly crowded place thanks to the constant influx of new satellites and it’s only to get more cramped as the cost to get to orbit falls.
Those dynamics have brought attention to startup Northwood Space, which has spent the last few years developing more modern and efficient ground-based communications infrastructure. The startup capitalized on that interest in two ways this week.
The El Segundo, California-based company announced on Tuesday it has closed a $100 million Series B funding round, led by Washington D.C.-based firm Washington Harbour Partners (which has been on a run of space investments) and co-led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Northwood has also secured a $49.8 million contract with the United States Space Force to help upgrade what’s known as the “satellite control network,” which “handles a huge variety of consequential space missions for our government” including tracking and controlling GPS satellites, founder and CEO Bridgit Mendler said on a call with reporters.
The funding round and government contract are major milestones for the company, which is just a few years old and only closed its $30 million Series A less than a year ago.
But with so much interest in funding space tech, hard tech, and defense tech right now, Mendler said this was an opportunity for her company to grow responsibly and quickly.
“Yes, this is happening faster than we thought — you know, two fundraises in the same year and large sums of capital,” she said. But, she pointed out, “that’s really what we’re ready for from a production standpoint.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Mendler also said the fresh capital will help Northwood keep pace with growing demand, marking an “inflection point in the business.”
“We get customers coming to us all the time requiring a ground solution, wanting us to help think through a ground problem with them, and we don’t want there to be a resource constraint that blocks us from being able to support that mission,” she said. “And so the resources were very intentionally brought on at this point to support the missions that that are coming forward for us.”
Part of the attention on Northwood has to do with the fact that what it’s doing — making smaller phased-array antenna systems meant to support or replace older systems that rely on larger dish antennas — remains novel, especially as a vertically-integrated play.
But with the volume of data being transmitted to and from satellites likely to keep growing, it’s an advantage Mendler is keen to press.
“It’s a hard thing to do. It requires a lot of risk, a lot of capital. It requires a lot of diverse skill sets to come together, to be able to really wrap your head around the entire ground [station] problem,” Mendler said. “And so yeah, it’s a big undertaking for us to take, and our bet is that if we can actually do that, if we can really think about ground holistically under one roof, then that produces a ton of value for the industry, and that’s really the right model to have.”
This pitch has made sense for prospective commercial customers for a while now. Companies like SpaceX and Amazon, which have massive satellite internet networks in the works, build and operate their own ground stations. But capacity is constrained for other players who typically have to rent space from third-party providers that may not always have availability.
Northwood CTO Griffin Cleverly expects the expanded capacity — that the new fundraising will help create — will be most valuable to customers who are “scaling into large constellations, so that may be going from like one or two satellites to dozens or more.”
Right now, Northwood’s “portal” sites can handle eight satellite links, he said. By the end of 2027, though, he expects the next-generation of Northwood’s ground stations to handle 10 to 12, with the company’s overall network capable of communicating with “hundreds” of satellites.”
With the Space Force contract, what Northwood is selling has clearly become an attractive option for the government.
It’s not surprising the newest armed forces branch is starting with the satellite control network (SCN), though. In 2023, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noted that the Department of Defense has been aware of capacity issues with the SCN since 2011.
“Satellite users who rely on the SCN and whom GAO interviewed said that this increased demand, and resulting limits on system availability, could compromise their missions in the future,” the report stated.
Tech
Uber to buy delivery arm of Turkey’s Getir
Uber has agreed to acquire the delivery business of Turkey’s Getir, once one of the biggest success stories of the country’s startup ecosystem, the company announced on Monday.
The deal will see Uber paying $335 million at the outset to purchase Getir’s food delivery business. The ride-hailing giant will also pay $100 million for a 15% stake in Getir’s grocery, retail, and water delivery business, and said it would complete the acquisition of the division over the next few years.
Uber is buying the business from Getir’s biggest shareholder, the Emirati sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. The investment firm was reportedly seeking to sell its stake in the company last year.
The deal comes after a turbulent few years for Getir, which once enjoyed a valuation of $12 billion, that saw the startup scale down its operations massively. The company launched to great traction in 2015, and invested aggressively to expand its operations in the U.S. and Europe, both organically and via acquisitions, especially during the pandemic.
But after the pandemic lockdowns eased, broader consumer demand for food and grocery delivery also wavered, and Getir chose to cut its losses in 2024, shutting shop and laying off thousands of staff in the U.S., U.K., and Europe in order to focus on business back home.
Nearly a year ago, the company went through a struggle for control over a restructuring plan proposed by Mubadala. The plan was opposed by one of Getir’s co-founders, who eventually sued to fight the “illegal coup,” but a Dutch court rejected the founder’s appeals.
The company has raised a total of $2.40 billion so far, according to PitchBook. Documents filed by Getir in court last year show the company valued its group assets at $374 million.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
“This transaction reflects the strength of the business and the progress it has made, particularly over the last year,” Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi, deputy group CEO at Mubadala, said in a statement.
Uber said it would combine the new unit’s services with Trendyol Go, a food and grocery delivery service in Turkey that the ride-hail giant bought for $700 million last May. Uber said Getir’s food delivery business alone recorded gross bookings of more than $1 billion in 2025, up 50% from a year earlier.
The deal follows a strong showing by Uber’s delivery business in the fourth quarter, reporting revenue of $4.89 billion, up 30% from a year earlier. The company said Europe, the Middle East, and Asia proved the fastest-growing regions for the business in 2026.
Tech
Discord to roll out age verification next month for full access to its platform
Discord is rolling out age verification globally starting next month, the company announced on Monday. All users will be put into a “teen-appropriate experience” by default unless they prove they’re adults. Age verification will be required to change certain settings and access age-restricted content.
Discord users will need to be confirmed as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting, and only adults can access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands. Additionally, messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and only verified adults can modify this setting.
People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know, and only adults will be able speak onstage in servers.
To complete age verification, users need to either complete a facial age estimation or submit an ID to Discord’s vendor partners. The platform plans to add more options in the future. Discord notes that some users may be asked to use multiple methods when additional information is needed to assign an age group.
The facial age estimation requires video selfies, which Discord says never leave your device. Additionally, the company says IDs submitted to its vendor partners are deleted quickly and, in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.
It’s worth noting that Discord disclosed last October that around 70,000 users may have had sensitive data, such as their government ID photos, exposed after hackers breached a third-party vendor that the platform uses for age-related appeals. The breach reflected digital rights activists’ concerns over the use of age checks as a way to make the internet “safer.”
Discord’s global launch of age verification follows the company’s decision to establish age checks for users in the U.K. and Australia last year.
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
“Rolling out teen-by-default settings globally builds on Discord’s existing safety architecture, giving teens strong protections while allowing verified adults flexibility,” said Savannah Badalich, head of product policy at Discord, in a press release. “We design our products with teen safety principles at the core and will continue working with safety experts, policymakers, and Discord users to support meaningful, long term wellbeing for teens on the platform.”
The announcement mirrors similar moves made by other online platforms, reflecting growing international efforts to strengthen child safety. Most recently, Roblox introduced mandatory facial verification for access to chats on its platform. Last July, YouTube launched its age-estimation technology in the U.S. to identify teen users in order to provide a more age-appropriate experience.
Discord’s age-verification changes will begin in early March, and both new and existing users will need to verify their age to access age-restricted content.
Tech
YouTube TV introduces cheaper bundles, including a $65/month sports package
YouTube on Monday introduced lower-priced YouTube TV plans that will allow subscribers to better tailor their plans to their own interests in areas like sports, news, and entertainment. The company said that it will offer more than 10 different plans to choose from, all priced below the $82.99 per month main YouTube TV plan that has access to more than 100 networks. The new plans will start rolling out this week.
While that main plan will not go away, the new plans will allow customers to pick what matters most and what they could do without in return for cost savings.
Among the new plans are a $64.99 per month Sports plan, a Sports + News plan for $71.99 per month, a less expensive Entertainment plan for $54.99 per month, and a $69.99 per month News + Entertainment + Family plan, which includes kids’ content.
The Sports plans include all major broadcasters, plus networks like FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN networks, and ESPN Unlimited. This plan is $18 cheaper per month than the main plan.
YouTube TV’s news channels include CNBC, Fox News, CNN, MS NOW, and Bloomberg, along with other national news channels. Combined with Sports, the package is priced $11 lower per month than the main YouTube TV plan.
The entertainment-only plan is $28 cheaper per month than the main plan, and includes major broadcasters as well as FX, Hallmark, Comedy Central, Bravo, Paramount, Food Network, and HGTV. Families with small kids can add other channels like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, Cartoon Network, and PBS Kids for a bit more.
The company is also offering discounts for new subscribers, which could lower the price of certain plans further for either the first few months or the first year. Subscribers will continue to have access to YouTube TV’s unlimited DVR, support for up to six family members on one account, multiview, and more.
Other add-ons like NFL Sunday Ticket + RedZone, HBO Max, and 4K Plus can also be purchased to customize plans further.
The company says all the new plans will roll out over the next several weeks.
Customized packages are now not a new idea in streaming — à la carte options were a key part of the early streaming pioneer Sling TV’s initial offering, for instance. This element of personalization was also one of the factors that was meant to make streaming a better alternative to traditional pay TV, where consumers often ended up paying for channels they didn’t want.
But as streamers added more content, networks, and, in particular, sports programming, the cost of streaming inched back up to compete with cable and linear television. Live TV streamers like YouTube TV may have offered convenience and some savings over still more expensive cable, but it wasn’t exactly affordable anymore.
These new packages hit the market at a time when consumer confidence is at its lowest in more than 11 years, due to fears about the labor market and higher prices, which have made consumers more cautious about their spending.
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