E-scooter founder raises $5M for space data center startup
Original: How an e-scooter founder raised $5 million to build space data centers
Why This Matters
Demonstrates venture capital confidence in space computing despite economic challenges
Orbital, founded by Spin e-scooter creator Euwyn Poon, raised $5 million seed funding led by a16z to build space-based data centers. The company plans to deploy 10,000 satellites providing distributed gigawatt computing power, pending SpaceX Starship availability.
Euwyn Poon, who founded e-scooter company Spin and sold it to Ford in 2018, launched Orbital through a16z's Speedrun accelerator with $5 million in seed funding. The Los Angeles-based startup aims to build space data centers using SpaceX's upcoming Starship rocket for affordable launches. Current Falcon 9 costs make the business model economically unfeasible, according to Poon. The 12-person team includes veterans from Amazon LEO, SpaceX, and Northrop Grumman. Orbital plans a demo flight testing radiation shielding and thermal management with an Nvidia Blackwell chip, followed by launching its first data-processing spacecraft with Nvidia Space-1 Vera Rubin-class GPUs in 2028. The company's ultimate goal is deploying 10,000 satellites providing distributed gigawatt computing power at 100kw per satellite.