Satlyt Raises $8 Million to Run AI Software on Satellites

Software for Orbital Computing

Satlyt, a startup headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and Nairobi, has raised an $8 million seed round to build software that lets many satellites share the work of large computing jobs in space. Co-founder Rama Afullo, a Kenyan American engineer who previously worked in Google's cloud computing business and briefly at SpaceX's Starlink network in 2024, pitched the idea of orbital computing to both companies and says each one rejected it before he left to start his own venture.

Unlike SpaceX, Google, and startups such as Starcloud and Cowboy Space Company, Satlyt does not plan to build its own spacecraft. Instead, it is developing software to operate AI models across many companies' satellites, an approach Afullo compares to VMware and Snowflake, platforms that let users run complex software without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. "The folks like SpaceX who are doing orbital data centers, if they are the iPhone, we'll build Android as a horizontally integrated, open ecosystem," he said. Satlyt's software is set to launch on a SpaceX rocket alongside the first prototype of Google's space data center effort, Project Suncatcher.

Demonstrations and Upcoming Missions

Satlyt has already flown its software on two demonstration missions. Its initial focus is operational efficiency: spacecraft typically depend on flight controllers on the ground to solve problems, and sending data back to Earth, known as downlink, is expensive and often slow. Using AI to make decisions on the spacecraft itself can mean real savings. Earlier this year, Satlyt deployed Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model onboard a spacecraft operated by Momentus, and the model cut the size of a transmission about onboard software errors by more than 60%, which Afullo says can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per satellite each year.

A coming launch will put Satlyt's software to work onboard a spacecraft built by TakeMe2Space, an Indian startup that builds computing hardware for satellites. The mission involves three customers: NASA, which is paying to test protocols for cloud computing in space; Stellerian, a startup focused on space surveillance that wants to test image processing workloads; and TakeMe2Space itself, which aims to show its satellite can host other companies' software. Satlyt's next project is to create a shared computing system spanning two different satellites, which it expects to attempt next year, with the goal of building a true compute cloud in orbit as a third-party provider to spacecraft builders.

Investors and Market Outlook

The seed round was led by Houston-based Non Sibi Ventures, whose partner Bernard Harris served as a NASA astronaut for more than 20 years. Non Sibi partner Kent Lucas said the firm backed Satlyt because its success does not depend on the most ambitious vision of space data centers, which faces uncertain economics and a launch bottleneck. "We don't need data centers in space for Rama to be wildly successful," Lucas told TechCrunch. "It can just be driven by the number of satellites going up."

Afullo hopes Satlyt's software will be live on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade, when he expects virtually every spacecraft builder to put GPUs or similar advanced processors on their satellites. "If you're putting up a satellite without putting up a GPU on it, at the very least, you're doing yourself a disservice," he says.

Sources: Techcrunch