London-based AI startup Applied Computing has secured a twenty million dollar Series A funding round led by engineering firm KBR, with participation from Databricks Ventures. Founded in 2023, the company is developing Orbital, a specialized foundation model designed to optimize operations across oil, gas, refining, and petrochemical facilities. The investment will support international expansion, research and engineering talent acquisition, and deeper deployments with energy sector clients. Industrial energy facilities generate vast amounts of data from thousands of sensors, yet operators traditionally utilize less than eight percent due to challenges in integrating real-time telemetry with engineering documentation and chemical constraints. Orbital addresses this fragmentation by fusing time-series analytics, physics-based modeling, and natural language processing into a single predictive engine. The system evaluates sensor inputs alongside equipment limits and operator protocols to detect anomalies, diagnose root causes, and simulate operational adjustments within minutes. According to co-founder and chief executive Callum Adamson, this capability compresses diagnostic workflows that previously required days or weeks into mere seconds, enabling facilities to reduce energy consumption while maintaining consistent throughput. The startup has rapidly scaled from stealth mode to double-digit millions in annual recurring revenue within eighteen months, deploying Orbital across several large publicly traded upstream, downstream, and petrochemical enterprises. Strategic partnerships have accelerated adoption, with KBR integrating the technology into its INSITE 3.0 digital platform for ammonia production initiatives. Additional collaborations include Indian enterprise Wipro, an unnamed major United States upstream operator, and a forthcoming agreement with a European oil major. While the industrial software market features established incumbents such as AspenTech, AVEVA, Cognite, and Seeq, Applied Computing differentiates itself through proprietary, real-world operational data that simulated environments cannot replicate. Applied Computing will allocate the latest capital toward geographic expansion, including the recent launch of a Houston office to better serve North American clients, alongside its existing headquarters in London and operational center in Bengaluru. Middle Eastern market entry is also under consideration. The funding round underscores investor confidence in AI-driven industrial optimization, positioning Applied Computing to bridge the gap between legacy process management and next-generation predictive analytics in heavily regulated energy sectors.