Orbital Industries raises $50 million Series B to scale its AI-designed data center coolant and materials discovery
Plural led the round, with participation from NVentures.
2/ It's a more daring, more full-stack path than just selling software to incumbents, but it's also an approach that can more aggressively push new materials into the real world.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy1/ I'm really excited to share that Plural is leading @Orbital_Ind's $50m Series B round Orbital is using AI to discover and design novel compounds from the atoms up, then engineering the products that exploit them directly.
3/ Their foundation model, Orb, is the best in the world for simulating physical systems, outperforming Meta, Google and leading academic labs, with radically less funding than any of them.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy2/ It's a more daring, more full-stack path than just selling software to incumbents, but it's also an approach that can more aggressively push new materials into the real world.
5/ The team has used Orb to find and develop Orbital's first product: a non-toxic dielectric cooling fluid for data centres that solves one of the most acute bottlenecks in AI infrastructure.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy4/ It is the only model currently capable of simulating 100,000 atoms on a single GPU, runs ten times faster than its nearest alternative, and its predictions don't drift or hallucinate over time, meaning scientists can actually trust the results.
6/ That kind of discovery normally takes the best part of a decade - it took Orbital just a few years. These cooling technologies are being further tested and developed through partnerships with enormous customers like AWS.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy5/ The team has used Orb to find and develop Orbital's first product: a non-toxic dielectric cooling fluid for data centres that solves one of the most acute bottlenecks in AI infrastructure.
4/ It is the only model currently capable of simulating 100,000 atoms on a single GPU, runs ten times faster than its nearest alternative, and its predictions don't drift or hallucinate over time, meaning scientists can actually trust the results.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy3/ Their foundation model, Orb, is the best in the world for simulating physical systems, outperforming Meta, Google and leading academic labs, with radically less funding than any of them.
8/ The exceptional founding team of @jgodwin_ai, @gin_james and @Dmiodovnik possess deep technical capability, commercial edge and the conviction to do the hard thing rather than the easy one.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy7/ Orbital is also manufacturing its own modular data centres with their cooling fluid embedded - engineered for Vera Rubin and the next generation of 2,000W+ TDP chips.
7/ Orbital is also manufacturing its own modular data centres with their cooling fluid embedded - engineered for Vera Rubin and the next generation of 2,000W+ TDP chips.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy6/ That kind of discovery normally takes the best part of a decade - it took Orbital just a few years. These cooling technologies are being further tested and developed through partnerships with enormous customers like AWS.
12/ There's an even bigger opportunity on the horizon - a sort of Isomorphic Labs for materials. As other frontier technologies progress, companies operating in areas like fusion, defence and quantum computing will all face materials-constrained challenges.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy11/ Jonny spent years working inside DeepMind's material research programme, and is trying his hardest to follow the example Demis has set in building the next trillion dollar British company from that foundation.
11/ Jonny spent years working inside DeepMind's material research programme, and is trying his hardest to follow the example Demis has set in building the next trillion dollar British company from that foundation.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy10/ We’re extremely lucky to have @demishassabis in London as a shining example of ambition for people to take inspiration from.
10/ We’re extremely lucky to have @demishassabis in London as a shining example of ambition for people to take inspiration from.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy8/ The exceptional founding team of @jgodwin_ai, @gin_james and @Dmiodovnik possess deep technical capability, commercial edge and the conviction to do the hard thing rather than the easy one.
13/ Orbital has the potential to be the company that unlocks what they need, enabling far more rapid hardware development for those hard-but-critical engineering challenges.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy12/ There's an even bigger opportunity on the horizon - a sort of Isomorphic Labs for materials. As other frontier technologies progress, companies operating in areas like fusion, defence and quantum computing will all face materials-constrained challenges.
16/ And do read @jeremyakahn’s profile of Orbital in @Fortune today: https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/
Ian Hogarth@soundboy15/ You can read more about why we invested in Orbital here: https://www.pluralplatform.com/features/why-we-invested-in-orbital-industries
17/ I’m also very pleased that we’re joining the fantastic existing group of investors behind the company including @CompoundVC, @FlyVC, NVentures, @radicalvcfund and @Toyota_Ventures.
Ian Hogarth@soundboy16/ And do read @jeremyakahn’s profile of Orbital in @Fortune today: https://fortune.com/2026/05/28/exclusive-orbital-industries-raises-50-million-series-b-funding-round-ai-to-discover-exotic-new-materials/