Philip Johnston (entrepreneur)

Philip Johnston
Johnston in September, 2025
Born (1986-12-18) December 18, 1986 [1]
United Kingdom
EducationColumbia University (MA)
Harvard Kennedy School (MPA)
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (MBA)
Occupationsentrepreneur, business executive
OrganizationStarcloud
Known forCo-founder of Starcloud and Opontia
Websitestarcloud.com

Philip Johnston (born December 18, 1986) is an entrepreneur and business executive.[1][2][3][4] He is the co-founder and CEO of Starcloud, a space technology company developing orbital data centers, and previously co-founded Opontia, a digital brand aggregator.[5][6]

Early life and education

Johnston was born in Guildford, Surrey in the UK on December 18th, 1986. As a young child, he lived for five years in South Africa and later earned a First-class BSc Hons in Applied Mathematics from The University of Nottingham in 2008, where he was also admitted to Mensa.[7] He then earned a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Columbia University in 2010.[8] He subsequently completed a three-year dual-degree Masters: an MBA from Wharton, and an MPA in National Security and Technology from Harvard University in 2019, where he was the student body president of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.[9] Johnston is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.[8][10][11]

Career

Johnston started his career as a software engineer doing high-frequency algorithmic trading.[12] Later, from 2019 to 2021, Johnston worked as an associate at McKinsey & Company where he worked on satellite projects for national space agencies.[13][14]

In March 2021, Johnston co-founded Opontia alongside Manfred Meyer, a digital brand aggregator focused on the Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA) region.[15] The company's business model centered on acquiring profitable digital brands.[15]

In June 2021, Opontia raised $20 million in seed funding from Global Founders Capital, Presight Capital, Raed Ventures, and Kingsway Capital, along with angel investors including Tushar Ahluwalia, Jonathan Doerr (co-founder of Jumia), and Hosam Arab.[16]

In December 2021, Opontia raised $42 million in a Series A round, making it one of the largest Series A rounds in the region. The round was a mix of equity and venture debt, with STV leading the equity investment.[17][18][19] The company ranked 12th on Forbes Middle East's Top 50 most funded startups in 2021.[20] Opontia was acquired by Perfection in 2023.

In early 2024, Johnston co-founded Starcloud (originally named Lumen Orbit).[13][21] Starcloud is a US–based company that designs, builds, and deploys orbital data centers in space.[22]

Starcloud participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2024 cohort and raised approximately $21 million in seed funding by the end of 2024.[23] Investors include Y Combinator, NFX and In-Q-Tel, and the company is part of NVIDIA's Inception Program.[23] The company rebranded from Lumen Orbit to Starcloud in February 2025.[13]

In November 2025, Starcloud launched its first satellite, Starcloud-1, equipped with an NVIDIA H100 GPU, which the company reported as being 100 times more powerful than any GPU previously operated in space.[24][25] The satellite successfully trained NanoGPT, a large language model, marking the first time an LLM was trained in space.[25][26]

Personal life

Johnston is the youngest of 5 boys and has an identical twin, Adrian Johnston, who is the founder of Y Combinator-backed Elyos AI.[27] Johnston is the great-grandchild of Lieutenant-General Sir William Dobbie.[28]

References

  1. ^ a b "Philip Johnston US Green Card". www.x.com. 2025-04-21. Retrieved 2025-04-21.
  2. ^ Field, Matthew (2025-12-25). "The mad plan to put AI servers in space". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  3. ^ "The answer to tech's clean energy problem? Put data centres in space". www.thetimes.com. 2025-01-05. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  4. ^ "This Entrepreneur Thinks Most Data Centers Will Be In Space In 20 Years". Forbes. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  5. ^ Kluger, Jeffrey. "As AI Grows, Should We Move Data Centers to Space?". TIME. Archived from the original on 2026-01-08. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  6. ^ "Silicon Valley's revolution is coming — if it can find the power". www.thetimes.com. 2025-08-16. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  7. ^ "Philip Johnston On Raising $46 Million To Enable Online Sellers To Realize The Full Value Of Their Brands". Alejandro Cremades. Retrieved 2022-01-15.
  8. ^ a b "Visiting Experts AMA: Philip Johnston". Venture Lab. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  9. ^ "Philip Johnston Harvard Kennedy School President Graduation Speech". YouTube. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
  10. ^ "Author Philip Johnston".
  11. ^ "CFA members directory". CFA Institue. Retrieved 2016-06-15.
  12. ^ "Philip Johnston career backgroud". Data center magazine. Retrieved 2025-03-01.
  13. ^ a b c "Lumen Orbit changes its name to Starcloud and raises $10M for space data centers". GeekWire. 2025-02-26. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  14. ^ a b "Philip Johnston TED TALK". TED. 2025-10-25. Retrieved 2025-10-25.
  15. ^ a b "Opontia: Enabling e-commerce brands to go global". Wamda. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  16. ^ "Riyadh-based startup Opontia picks up $20m in Middle East's biggest seed round". Gulf News. 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  17. ^ "Opontia raises $42 million in Series A". Wamda. 2021-12-08. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  18. ^ "Opontia gets $42M to buy more e-commerce brands in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa". TechCrunch. 2021-12-08. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  19. ^ Sambidge, Andrew (2021-12-17). "Dubai's Opontia plans expansion after securing $42m funding". Arabian Business: Latest News on the Middle East, Real Estate, Finance, and More. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  20. ^ "The Middle East's 50 Most-Funded Startups". Forbes Lists. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  21. ^ Szkutak, Rebecca (2024-12-11). "200 VCs wanted to get into Lumen Orbit's $11M seed round". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  22. ^ "How Starcloud Is Bringing Data Centers to Outer Space". NVIDIA Blog. 2025-10-15. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  23. ^ a b "Starcloud: Data centers in space". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  24. ^ "Philip Johnston | TEDAI San Francisco 2025". tedai-sanfrancisco.ted.com. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  25. ^ a b "Nvidia-backed Starcloud trains first AI model in space, orbital data centers". CNBC. 2025-12-10. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  26. ^ "Starcloud plans its next moves after training first AI model in space". GeekWire. 2025-12-22. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  27. ^ "Philip and Adrian Johnston twin post". X. 2026-02-09. Retrieved 2026-02-09.
  28. ^ "Faith and Fortitude: The Life and Work of General Sir William Dobbie". Google Books. Retrieved 2006-11-06.
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