Key facts
- Satlyt raised $8 million in seed funding.
- The company's software enables AI models to run on satellites.
- Satlyt's software will launch on a SpaceX rocket this week.
- The software aims to reduce downlink costs and processing times.
- Satlyt's software previously reduced transmission size by over 60% on a demonstration mission.
Satlyt, a startup founded by former Google and SpaceX engineer Rama Afullo, has secured $8 million in seed funding to develop software that allows AI models to operate directly on satellites. The company, with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi, aims to create an open ecosystem for satellite computing, enabling multiple satellites to share processing power for large computational tasks.
Afullo, who previously worked on Google's cloud computing business and SpaceX's Starlink, believes there is significant untapped potential for computing in space. Satlyt's approach is to build the software layer, akin to operating systems or cloud platforms, rather than manufacturing spacecraft. This strategy positions Satlyt as a provider of essential software infrastructure for the growing space industry.
The company's software has already undergone two demonstration missions. In a recent deployment, Satlyt's software running Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model on a Momentus spacecraft reduced the size of transmissions related to onboard software errors by over 60%. This efficiency is expected to save satellites hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
This week, Satlyt's software will be launched on a spacecraft built by Indian startup TakeMe2Space. The mission includes testing cloud computing protocols for NASA, evaluating image processing for space surveillance startup Stellerian, and demonstrating TakeMe2Space's hardware capabilities.
Satlyt's seed round was led by Non Sibi Ventures, with partner Bernard Harris highlighting the firm's confidence in the space-based business model. Partner Kent Lucas noted that Satlyt's success is not solely dependent on the high-cost vision of large orbital data centers, but can be driven by the increasing number of satellites being launched. Afullo hopes to have Satlyt's software on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade, anticipating that GPUs will become standard on future spacecraft.