How an e-scooter founder raised $5 million to build space data centers

Euwyn Poon, founder of the e-scooter company Spin, has successfully raised $5 million in seed funding for his new venture, Orbital. This startup, which emerged from a16z’s Speedrun accelerator, aims to establish data centers in space, a concept gaining traction due to the insatiable demand for AI compute and the limitations of terrestrial deployment. Orbital’s ambition is to deploy 10,000 satellites, collectively providing a gigawatt of computing power.

The primary challenge for space-based data centers is the exorbitant cost of launching materials into orbit. Orbital, like many of its competitors, is banking on the success and commercial availability of SpaceX’s Starship, which promises to significantly reduce launch costs. Poon stated that full-scale operations would commence once Starship is regularly flying.

In the interim, Orbital is preparing for a demo flight to test its radiation shielding and thermal management technology. This will involve flying an Nvidia Blackwell chip on a partner’s satellite. By 2028, the company hopes to launch its first data-processing spacecraft equipped with Nvidia’s Space-1 Vera Rubin-class GPUs.

Poon’s diverse background, including scaling Spin to 250,000 scooters across 100 cities, is seen as a significant asset in navigating the complexities of building an aerospace company. Investors are increasingly comfortable with the long-term horizons and substantial capital requirements of such ambitious space ventures, recognizing the growing energy and excitement in capital markets for space-related technologies.