Key facts
- Satlyt raised $8 million in seed funding.
- The company aims to enable satellites to share large computing jobs.
- Satlyt's software was deployed on a Momentus spacecraft with Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model.
- The software reduced transmission size for onboard software errors by over 60%.
- Satlyt's software will be tested on a TakeMe2Space spacecraft this week.
- Non Sibi Ventures led the seed round.
Satlyt, a startup founded by former Google and SpaceX engineer Rama Afullo, has secured $8 million in seed funding to develop software enabling AI computations on satellites. The company, with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi, aims to create a horizontally integrated, open ecosystem for AI on spacecraft, allowing multiple satellites to share computing resources.
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 software, akin to VMware or Snowflake, that allows users to run complex applications without managing the underlying infrastructure, positioning itself as the 'Android' to SpaceX's 'iPhone' in the orbital data center space.
The company has already conducted two demonstration missions. Earlier this year, Satlyt deployed Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model on a Momentus spacecraft, which reduced the size of transmissions about onboard software errors by over 60%. This efficiency is expected to save hundreds of thousands of dollars per satellite annually.
This week, Satlyt's software will launch on a spacecraft built by Indian startup TakeMe2Space. The mission includes testing cloud computing protocols for NASA, image processing for space surveillance startup Stellerian, and demonstrating the satellite's capability to host third-party software for TakeMe2Space.
Satlyt's seed round was led by Houston-based Non Sibi Ventures, with partner Bernard Harris highlighting the firm's conviction in the space-based business. Partner Kent Lucas noted that Satlyt's success does not solely depend on the high-octane vision of space data centers, but can be driven by the increasing number of satellites being launched.
Afullo hopes Satlyt's software will be on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade, anticipating that most spacecraft builders will integrate advanced processors like GPUs. He views satellites without such processors as a disservice to their own capabilities.