Bridgit Mendler, a former Disney actor turned space startup CEO, is reaching for the stars

Bridgit Mendler, who is known for roles on Good Luck Charlie and other Disney shows, is entering new territory: space.

Disney has successfully launched the careers of mega stars like Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. But now, one former child actress who appeared on the network is launching something else: a space company. 

Bridgit Mendler, a 31-year-old singer and actor best known for playing Teddy Duncan on the Disney Channel original series Good Luck Charlie, announced this week on X, (formerly Twitter), that she’s entering uncharted territory: She’s launching a California-based satellite data startup called Northwood Space.

Mendler will be the CEO of the company, and her husband, Griffin Cleverly, whom she married in 2019, will take on the role of chief technology officer. “Expect the unexpected!” she wrote on X, responding to a CNBC reporter who broke the news.

Ari Eisenstat, the space program director for the upcoming Texas Eclipse Festival says that Mendler’s foray into science “is a great example of space moving from the domain of governments to becoming accessible to everyone”. Eisenstat adds that we should all be watching “younger generations to see diverse entrepreneurs create social, economic, and environmental impact in the space community”.

Investors have already thrown $6.3m (£4.9m) in seed funding at the company, according to Mendler’s post on X, in which she said she hopes to create “a data highway between Earth and space.” Mendler continued, “We have a lot of work ahead of us but that’s the fun part.”

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Will Bridgit Mendler’s education set her up for Northwood Space success?

While it may come as a surprise to her fans, Mendler has long had interests outside of acting. She graduated from the University of Southern California in 2016 before she started working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in 2017. She enrolled in the graduate program in 2018, and then began a doctorate in philosophy at MIT in 2020. The next year, Mendler enrolled in Harvard Law School.