OKAPI:Orbits Funding News- Germany-based OKAPI:Orbits Secures €13M Funding

The company offers complete space traffic management solutions, helping support space missions from the planning stage all the way to the end of the mission.

Founded in 2018, OKAPI:Orbits uses AI to manage space traffic. Their platform combines data from different sources to predict, detect, and handle risks in space—like moving objects, signal interference, and environmental issues.

OKAPI:Orbits was born out of the Technical University of Braunschweig and is built on years of research into how objects move and behave in space.

CTO and co-founder Christopher Kebschull created software during his PhD to simulate how satellites are tracked from the ground.

CEO Kristina Nikolaus shared that in Germany, PhD students in this field usually end up working in the car industry with companies like Volkswagen. But she and her three co-founders—three PhD students and one computer science student—believed they had built something special and didn’t want their work to just sit on a shelf.

In 2018, the commercial space industry was taking off. Elon Musk had just announced Starlink, and more people were becoming aware of the dangers of space debris and the risk of chain-reaction collisions, known as Kessler Syndrome. Seeing the opportunity, the student founders of OKAPI:Orbits decided to launch their startup.

For the first three years, the company was bootstrapped—run by the four founders without pay. During that time, they grew to a 15-person team. A major breakthrough came when their software was validated by the European Space Agency (ESA). That helped them attract their first customers and raise a small angel investment from industry experts.

Their first commercial client was a Swiss satellite company, followed by the ESA, which has now been using their service for over three years.

Nikolaus detailed:

“From there, we expanded our product portfolio—from collision avoidance to mission analysis and space traffic coordination. Today, we’re 35 people based near Berlin, and continuing to grow.”

Its system is already used by major players like SpaceX and Amazon and Nikolaus detailed, “We’re building an industry-standard solution and working closely with policymakers to make sure the technology can support their goals. Our focus is interoperability — so we can work with systems in the U.S., and potentially those in China, India, or Russia.”

According to Nikolaus, it’s like a digital twin:

“You can forecast the orbital environment in two weeks, a year, or even ten years. We analyse potential neighbors, space debris density, and maneuverability limits to help customers understand how long their satellite can realistically operate.

For operational collision avoidance, our software provides 10 days’ lead time with 99 per cent reliability. That early warning lets customers make small adjustments to avoid dangerous situations without large, fuel-consuming maneuvers.

When two active satellites are involved—what we call "active vs. active" scenarios—the challenge increases significantly, like coordinating two planes in midair. It’s complex, but critical."

About OKAPI:Orbits

OKAPI:Orbits offers complete space traffic management solutions. Founded in 2018, the company helps protect space missions using AI-powered platforms: OKAPI:Aether, OKAPI:Astrolabe, and OKAPI:Soteria. These tools track and manage objects in space to keep missions safe and running smoothly.