# Venture capital can shorten the space infrastructure cycle

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/venture-capital-can-shorten-the-space-infrastructure-cycle/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Bridgit Mendler](https://realalpha.app/people/bridgit-mendler/) · Bridgit Mendler is co-founder and CEO of Northwood. · Co-founded Northwood Space, building shared satellite ground infrastructure; earlier a Disney Channel actress and singer.
- Host: [Erik Torenberg](https://realalpha.app/people/erik-torenberg/) · General partner, Andreessen Horowitz · Helped build Product Hunt; founded On Deck, Village Global and Turpentine.
- Show: a16z Podcast
- Episode: [Inside The $100M Bet on the Future of Space | Northwood CEO on a16z](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/), Mar 23, 2026
- Moment: 20:09 to 23:50 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/venture-capital-can-shorten-the-space-infrastructure-cycle/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1209

## Quote

> “When we talk to government, you know, they're looking for **partners to absorb that risk**.”
> — [Bridgit Mendler](https://realalpha.app/people/bridgit-mendler/) at [23:20](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1400) · a16z Podcast

## Takeaways

1. Early internet builders backed a direction before applications were clear.
2. Government and commercial customers want partners to absorb risk.
3. Venture capital can help customers pursue bigger ideas faster.

## About this segment

Bridgit Mendler compares space infrastructure with the early internet, then says venture investors can absorb risk for government and commercial customers. That risk-sharing could help infrastructure scale arrive sooner.

From “Inside The $100M Bet on the Future of Space | Northwood CEO on a16z”, Mar 23, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[20:16](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1216) service offline. So I think a similar concept applies here. Yeah. A lot of people analogize the space economy to the early internet. They say, you know, a lot of infrastructure being built, you know, lots of companies will fail and lots of applications, very successful applications will be built on top. Do you, does this analogy hold for you? Yeah, for sure. I get really inspired by the analogy um especially thinking about you know for folks that were early with internet like they there's no way they would have foreseen what the internet is today um but they were betting on a direction and they were setting up a model that would uh that would basically like unlock a lot of innovation and they were like uh they were developing principles and building aligned with certain principles that would support that innovation and look what we

[21:08](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1268) have today um yeah i mean i think like something's as simple as like tcp ip protocols for example like trying to make different layers as as easy and supporting for innovation as possible so i think we're in a similar moment with the space industry where we don't know what is going to be But like, a year ago today, would we think that everybody would be talking about orbital data centers? No way. But it's captivated the public imagination and who knows what's going to come next. And so for us, we're directionally aligned with that movement. And we are building to principles that will support innovation. Like the whole thing that we're about is taking companies further faster, taking space missions further faster.

[21:51](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1311) And we do that, you know, by our model, which I've described. So if I were to like, look forward into the space industry, I think, you know, if you analogize to the internet, like, you have a couple of kind of platform infrastructure plays that really wind up becoming enmeshed across the internet. And, you know, it's not like you have a thousand different companies that stand to benefit from them. But there are a few that wind up becoming really influential and fundamental. You know, cloud is one that we analogize to a lot and we're inspired by. And we want to be one of those companies.

[22:28](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1348) Yeah. What is the right way of mental model for thinking about the relationship between the public sector and the private sector in terms of growing the space economy and industry and sort of technological capabilities? Is it kind of like the internet where a lot of the early work was either done by or funded by government and then the private sector sort of, you know, took the ball, so to speak? Or is it more in parallel? How should we think about that?

[22:51](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1371) Yeah, I think it's very analogous. I think it's interesting how the venture ecosystem fits in now in a deeper way than it did back then. Yeah, I think a lot of technology innovation does tend to take place at those fringes that the government use cases are solving for. And I think that's happening now. And I think that the benefit that we have, which hopefully will lead to like a shorter cycle in reaching the kind of infrastructure scale with the space industry, is with venture absorbing some of that risk.

[23:26](https://realalpha.app/v/jHECsr9GCs8/?t=1406) When we talk to government, you know, they're looking for partners to absorb that risk. And frankly, when we talk to, you know, some of the commercial companies as well, they're really excited about Ventra's role in absorbing some amount of risk so that they can pursue bigger ideas faster.