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

Orbital, a startup founded by former Spin CEO Euwyn Poon, secured $5 million in seed funding to develop data centers in orbit. Poon, who previously scaled the e-scooter company Spin to 250,000 scooters across 50 cities, aims to launch 10,000 data centers in space. The company plans to leverage its orbital infrastructure to provide low-latency data processing and storage for applications requiring rapid access to information. This initiative targets industries such as autonomous vehicles, advanced robotics, and real-time scientific research, which are currently constrained by terrestrial network limitations. Orbital's strategy involves deploying modular data center units that can be launched and maintained in space, offering a novel solution for the growing demand for high-performance computing power. The seed funding round was led by EQT Ventures, with participation from other investors including Tribe Capital and Contrary. This capital infusion will support Orbital's research and development efforts, the construction of its initial orbital hardware, and the expansion of its engineering team. The company anticipates its first orbital data center deployments within the next three years, aiming to revolutionize data accessibility and processing capabilities by bringing computation closer to where data is generated and consumed globally.