Orbital Industries raised a $50 million Series B round led by Plural, with participation from Nventures and prior investors Radical Ventures, Compound, and Fly Ventures. The company, rebranded from Orbital Materials, operates from London and San Francisco and plans to scale commercial deployment of its first two data-center-focused products. It will also grow its 50-person team and expand its AI platform for industrial applications beyond data centers. Orbital competes with other AI materials startups, including CuspAI and Periodic Labs. Unlike licensing-focused models, Orbital intends to sell materials its AI models discover directly. It also uses AI to optimize manufacturing, including building new hardware, similar to Prometheus’s approach to AI-driven manufacturing and engineering optimization.
"Orbital Industries, a startup using AI to design advanced materials, has raised a $50 million Series B funding round led by the venture capital firm Plural. Nventures, the venture arm of AI chip company Nvidia, which had previously invested in Orbital, joined the round along with other prior investors Radical Ventures, Compound and Fly Ventures."
"The company, which has offices in London and San Francisco, recently rebranded from Orbital Materials. It said the new capital will scale commercial deployment of its first two products-both of which are aimed at the data center industry-and grow its 50-person team. It also plans to develop its AI platform for industrial applications beyond data centers."
"Rather than simply use AI models to find new chemical compounds and then license the intellectual property out to large chemicals or coatings companies such as Germany's BASF or Pittsburgh-based PPG, Orbital intends to sell the materials its AI models discover directly."
"It's also using AI models to optimize the manufacturing of these compounds, including building new hardware, Godwin said. In this, the company is similar to Prometheus, a startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among others, that has raised $6.2 billion and plans to use AI to optimize manufacturing and engineering processes across a number of high-tech ind"
#ai-materials-discovery #venture-funding #data-center-materials #manufacturing-optimization #industrial-ai-platforms
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