Orbital, a space data center startup, has raised $5 million in a seed round to develop satellite-based AI compute infrastructure. The company, which emerged from a16z’s Speedrun accelerator program in May, aims to deploy 10,000 satellites capable of providing a distributed gigawatt of computing power. The funding round includes notable investors such as Basis Set, Human Element, and Wayfinder, among others. Orbital’s founder, Euwyn Poon, previously founded e-scooter company Spin, which was acquired by Ford in 2018. Poon is now leveraging his experience in scaling a global business to build an aerospace company, according to a16z partner Andrew Chen.
Orbital is targeting the growing demand for AI compute by deploying data-processing spacecraft equipped with Nvidia’s Space-1 Vera Rubin-class GPUs. The company plans to launch its first data-processing spacecraft in 2028, with the goal of generating revenue through piece-wise inference work. Poon explained that the company will wait for SpaceX’s Starship rocket to become operational before scaling up, as the current Falcon 9 rocket’s cost makes the project economically unfeasible. Orbital is also working on a demo flight to test its radiation shielding and thermal management technology using an Nvidia Blackwell chip on a partner’s satellite.
Orbital is not the only company pursuing space-based AI compute. Competitors like Starcloud have already deployed GPUs in orbit and plan to launch more satellites to generate income until Starship enables full-scale deployment. Some companies, like Cowboy Space Company, are taking a more aggressive approach by building their own rockets. Poon remains confident that the AI demand will allow multiple companies to succeed, with diverse approaches to the space data center market. Chen noted that Poon’s experience scaling Spin, which deployed 250,000 scooters across 100 cities, demonstrates his ability to manage the complexities of an aerospace startup.
Source: techcrunch
