The European orbital compute thesis

high machines · investor deck

The European orbital compute thesis

Architecture lock by mid-2027 · €2–5M seed · 18-month window

Jan-Peter · PhD, AI4CE concurrent engineering · high machines · 2026-06-30

01 · Problem

Earth-bound compute can't scale

• Global data centre market ~$1.1T by 2035 — power, cooling, and density are the binding constraints on the ground.
• AI demand doubles every ~9 months; latency to LEO is ~150× faster than GEO; energy in space is ~8× more productive.
• The regulatory window is being written right now — ITU 2027, EU Space Law — and the architectures are being designed right now.

02 · Solution

Hub-and-spoke orbital compute for European sovereign AI

• Target architecture: 120 satellites @ 600 km @ 100 TFLOPS each, anchored on a European sovereign-AI workload.
• Mission-architecture design via deep reinforcement learning — the AI4CE PhD applies deep RL to constellation design, a capability 30-year engineering cultures cannot replicate.
• The seed funds the architecture lock + regulatory lane; the architecture lock justifies the Series A.

03 · Why this

The physics, the latency, the energy, the regulatory window

• Above the atmosphere, solar is roughly 8× more productive, heat sheds by radiation, vacuum is free insulation.
• LEO is ~150× faster than GEO for space-data round-trips — and that's the better problem.
• The regulatory window (ITU 2027, EU Space Law) is being written right now — whoever locks the architecture by mid-2027 sets the standard.

04 · Why now

The 2025–2027 phase shift · the 18-month window

• Between late 2025 and early 2026, orbital compute went from a slide in an ESA briefing to a product with customers and a launch manifest.
• Starcloud trained an LLM in space (Dec 2025); Axiom launched the first two ODC nodes to the ISS (Jan 2026); Google "Project Suncatcher" announced an 81-satellite TPUs-in-LEO constellation (early 2027).
• Europe has ~18 months to pick a lane.

05 · Why us

Why a young solo founder can win the lane that the primes don't want

• OHB has a 40-year track record. Airbus Defence and Space launches sovereign constellations. EnduroSat has the smallsat supply chain locked. They could do orbital compute. They won't.
• Orbital compute is 100% of our mission and ~1% of theirs; they run 5–10 year cycles; the opportunity is an 18-month window.
• The actual unfair advantage is the AI-native methodology — the AI4CE PhD applies deep RL to mission-architecture design.
• We get the market because the primes wait for proven demand. The 18-month window is for venture-funded startups to define the architecture.

06 · The market

TAM / SAM / SOM — sized today, sized defensibly

07 · Traction

What we've shipped

08 · Team

Solo founder + AI agent fleet

• Jan-Peter — founder. PhD in AI4CE concurrent engineering; deep RL for mission-architecture design. 6 published papers, 1 ESA CDF collaboration.
• OpenClaw agent fleet. In-house AI engineering agent (the same one writing this deck) — handles the engineering surface area a 4-person team would otherwise own. Self-improving; tracked via the BACKLOG/CHANGELOG discipline.
• EU regulatory network. Bundesnetzagentur authorisation pathway + ESA partnership status + 4 framework buckets per the US22 design review.
• Advisors TBD. The seed funds the first two senior hires (mission lead + regulatory lead).

09 · The ask

€2–5M seed to lock the architecture and the lane

We are at the post-research, pre-architecture stage. The deep-dive is done. The competitive landscape is mapped. The regulatory path is sketched. The engineering trade-offs are understood.

What €2–5M buys (€3M mid-point, illustrative):

• €1.2M FTE — 4 engineers × 2 years (mission design + RL ops + regulatory + EU partnerships).
• €0.6M spectrum + regulatory — ITU filings, EU Space Law readiness, BNetzA authorisation.
• €0.4M simulation stack — the "digital twin" of the 4-tier orbit constellation.
• €0.2M legal + corporate — entity setup, IP assignment, contract templates.
• €0.6M reserve — 24+ months of pure-software runway. Hardware spend is the Series A.

10 · Comparable rounds

Stage-fit, not headline-grab

• Starcloud: $170M Series A (March 2026) at a $1.1B valuation. The headline US orbital-AI Series A.
• US orbital-AI competitors (Axiom Space, Kepler Communications, Project Suncatcher, Sophia Space) have raised $100M+ each.
• We are raising €2–5M seed — an order of magnitude below the Series A's we've seen in this space. The seed funds the architecture lock that justifies the Series A math.