Nebular VC

Finn Murphy founded Nebular in 2023 with a straightforward conviction: the best venture returns come from investing in what's crossing an event horizon — the moment when an emerging technology or market is about to become inevitable, but before the rest of the market sees it. This "12-18 months ahead of the market" approach has already produced one of the space tech era's breakout winners.

Starcloud, Nebular's flagship holding, reached a $1.1 billion valuation in March 2026 after closing a $170 million Series A led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures to build orbital AI data centers. Nebular invested in Starcloud at the pre-seed stage, a bet that has validated Murphy's contrarian thesis around space-based compute.

This guide covers Nebular's investment thesis, check size, portfolio composition, and practical advice for founders trying to get a meeting with one of early-stage venture's most thesis-driven investors.

Beyond capital, Nebular provides portfolio founders with access to Murphy's network across the space tech and deep tech communities — a network that has proven valuable for recruiting technical talent and opening doors to government contracts, launch partnerships, and strategic customers.

Nebular's Fund II reached its first close at $32.3 million in October 2025, with 33 investors. The fund continues to back pre-seed and seed companies across space technology, robotics, quantum computing, AI infrastructure, and climate intervention — where physics or engineering constraints create durable competitive moats.

Nebular's tagline — "investing at the event horizon" — captures the thesis precisely. Murphy looks for the inflection point where an emerging technology or market is about to cross into inevitability, but where the broader investment community hasn't yet recognized the trend. This requires deep technical pattern recognition and comfort with the discomfort of early, non-consensus bets.

The firm's sectors span AI (infrastructure and applications), robotics, healthcare and digital health, space technology, climate and climate intervention, and defense technology. The common thread isn't a vertical — it's that Nebular targets areas where physics, engineering constraints, or proprietary data create moats that software-only competitors can't replicate.

Starcloud illustrates this perfectly. The thesis that orbital data centers would become strategically critical as AI training demand exploded was non-consensus in 2023. Unlimited solar energy, zero-latency passive cooling, and physical security advantages over terrestrial data centers were real — but most investors weren't ready to place an early bet on building compute infrastructure in orbit.

Nebular's check size of $250,000 to $2 million is concentrated in pre-seed and seed rounds, with a preference for leading. The firm takes board seats when founders welcome it, but otherwise is deliberately hands-off operationally — letting founders build without investor interference.

The firm evaluates investments based on technical differentiation, founder depth in the domain, and whether the opportunity window is truly early. Nebular passes on deals where the competitive dynamics are already clear or where the founding team lacks genuine technical credibility.

Nebular's first fund (approximately $30 million) was built on a solo-GP model that proved the thesis: early bets on deep tech before the market's recognition. Starcloud's unicorn valuation represents the fund's most significant exit-oriented outcome, but the portfolio spans over 30 companies including space-based robotics firms, quantum computing researchers, and AI infrastructure companies.

Fund II held its first close at $32.3 million in October 2025 with backing from 33 investors, signaling strong LP confidence in the strategy. The increase in fund size reflects Murphy's ability to write somewhat larger checks as needed while maintaining the pre-seed and seed focus that defines the portfolio.

In 2025 alone, Nebular made 9 new investments — a pace that reflects the firm's conviction-driven approach rather than spray-and-pray deployment. Notable new investments include Trace.Space, a Latvian AI platform for hardware engineering specification that raised a $4 million seed round in February 2025.

Portfolio companies that have gone on to raise follow-on capital include Starcloud ($170M Series A), Trace.Space ($4M seed with Cherry Ventures leading), and several others across AI, robotics, and biotech verticals.

The portfolio's breadth reflects Murphy's belief that the deep tech opportunity set is still fragmented enough that multiple category-defining companies will emerge across verticals — and that concentrating too narrowly would mean missing inflection points in adjacent spaces.

Starcloud is Nebular's highest-profile portfolio company and one of the defining startups of the space tech wave. Founded in Redmond, Washington, Starcloud is building the world's first orbital AI data center — a 5-gigawatt facility in orbit that promises unlimited solar energy and passive cooling for GPU compute at scale. The company's $170 million Series A in March 2026, led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, pushed its valuation to $1.1 billion, making it one of the fastest Y Combinator companies to reach unicorn status.

Trace.Space, based in Riga, Latvia, is an AI-enhanced requirements management platform for engineers developing complex industrial products — essentially using AI to compress the hardware specification and supply chain bottleneck that slows EV and aerospace development. Nebular backed Trace.Space in its initial seed round before Cherry Ventures led a $4 million seed investment in February 2025.

Anterior operates in the healthcare and life sciences space, representing Nebular's thesis that AI-native approaches can transform regulated industries with high friction and legacy infrastructure. The firm has made multiple investments across healthcare and digital health, reflecting the breadth of AI application beyond pure infrastructure.

Icarus Robotics and Instinct Robotics represent Nebular's space-based robotics thesis — companies building mechanical systems that operate in orbital or aerospace environments where terrestrial robotics approaches hit environmental limits.

The full portfolio spans 32 companies across AI infrastructure, robotics, quantum computing and cryptography, climate intervention, and defense technology — a deliberately eclectic mix that reflects the firm's conviction-based sourcing rather than a rigid thematic allocation.

Nebular's founder criteria is distinct from stage-gated evaluation frameworks. Murphy looks for what he calls "uncommon people" — founders with genuine depth in their domain rather than generalist entrepreneurs who can speak fluently about a technical space without having worked in it.

For space and robotics companies specifically, Nebular expects founders to have direct experience in aerospace, satellite engineering, or adjacent fields. The firm will probe technical credibility rigorously — not to exclude commercial co-founders, but to ensure the team has genuine access to the engineering breakthroughs they're claiming.

The ability to articulate why the current moment is the event horizon is critical. Nebular invests in inflection points, not just large markets. Founders should be able to explain why this technology, this team, and this timing converge into a unique window.

Conviction and intellectual honesty matter more than polish. Murphy has passed on well-presented companies with strong metrics because the thesis lacked the non-consensus element that defines Nebular's edge. Founders who can explain clearly why the market is wrong about something — not just why their solution is better — will resonate more.

Founder-friendly dynamics are a given. Nebular writes lead checks, takes board seats when appropriate, and provides hands-on support for portfolio companies navigating technical hiring, regulatory hurdles, and follow-on fundraising.

Nebular's primary sourcing channel is warm introductions from engineers, scientists, and founders with direct domain expertise in space tech, robotics, or deep tech. Cold outreach is accepted but significantly less effective without a credible technical connection in the introduction.

The firm receives pitch decks through its website at nebular.vc, but the conversion rate from cold submissions is low. The highest-leverage path is an introduction from a portfolio founder, a researcher at a space or quantum research institution, or an investor known in the deep tech community.

For cold outreach, the pitch should lead with the technical thesis — what the breakthrough is, why now is the event horizon, and what makes the team uniquely positioned to execute. Nebular is not the right investor for incremental improvements to existing categories; the firm wants to understand why this is a category-creating moment.

Meetings with Nebular are typically 45-60 minutes with Finn Murphy directly. Founders should be prepared for a rigorous technical conversation — Murphy will probe assumptions, challenge projections, and evaluate the team's depth in their domain.

Follow-up after initial meetings should focus on material milestones rather than regular updates. Nebular is thesis-driven, not dashboard-driven — if meaningful technical or commercial progress has occurred, that warrants a conversation.

Deep tech investing requires founders to demonstrate financial credibility in ways that differ from software-centric pitch expectations. Nebular expects founders to have a rigorous understanding of their cost structure, hardware development timelines, and path to revenue — whether from government contracts, enterprise customers, or data services.

Space companies typically require longer runways and more complex capital allocation than software companies. Founders should be prepared to discuss satellite development costs, launch expenses, insurance, and regulatory compliance in granular detail.

Financial projections for deep tech should clearly articulate the capital required to reach meaningful milestones — a working prototype, a single launch, a first commercial contract — with realistic cost assumptions grounded in actual vendor quotes or historical data from comparable programs.

Key performance indicators for space companies often include cost per kilogram to orbit, data latency, coverage metrics, and hardware reliability curves. Nebular will want to see that founders understand the unit economics specific to their domain.

Working with a fractional CFO experienced in deep tech or hardware businesses can strengthen the fundraising narrative by building financial models that accurately reflect development timelines and cost structures specific to space hardware or robotics — demonstrating credibility to investors who know the difference.

Whether you're preparing to pitch Nebular or other early-stage deep tech investors, having professional financials that account for hardware realities can set you apart from founders who present generic SaaS models to hardware-literate investors. Our team has helped deep tech and hardware companies build financial models that accurately reflect space hardware development costs, satellite economics, and the path to orbital revenue.

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