Orbital Industries, formerly known as Orbital Materials, is an AI-industrial company that combines frontier artificial intelligence with physical product development to accelerate the invention and manufacture of advanced materials. Founded in late 2022, the company built an AI platform that predicts the properties of novel materials by learning from public materials data, computer simulations, and experiments conducted in its own laboratory. Often described as an 'AlphaFold for materials science,' Orbital uses these models to search for new compounds far faster than traditional trial-and-error research.
The company's technology centers on multi-scale 'world models' - AI simulators that span quantum physics through fluid dynamics - paired with sample-efficient autonomous research agents that design and optimize experiments. This lets Orbital iterate in silico before committing time and capital to real-world synthesis, dramatically shortening the path from concept to validated material. The approach is aimed squarely at hard, high-value problems in cleantech and industry, including catalysts for biobased chemical production, materials for water treatment, and advanced thermal management.
Orbital's initial commercial focus is the data center industry, where it is developing advanced materials and high-density cooling solutions to address the soaring energy and thermal demands of AI computing. Over time the company plans to expand into energy, semiconductors, and industrial equipment, applying the same AI-accelerated discovery engine to decarbonization-relevant materials across multiple sectors. Its model of small, talent-dense teams blending AI specialists with materials scientists allows it to operate like a software company while building physical products.
The company was co-founded by CEO Jonathan Godwin, who spent five years at Google DeepMind working on AI for science and advanced materials, alongside CTO James Gin-Pollock, a repeat AI founder, and COO Daniel Miodovnik. With offices in London and San Francisco, Orbital raised a $50 million Series B led by Plural, with participation from Nvidia's NVentures, Radical Ventures, Compound, and Fly Ventures, to scale commercial deployment of its first products.