Satlyt Raises $8M Seed to Run AI Models Across Satellite Fleets

Satlyt, a startup building software to run AI models on satellites, has raised an $8 million seed round led by Houston-based Non Sibi Ventures, founder Rama Afullo told TechCrunch.

The company's software is set to launch Thursday on a SpaceX rocket alongside the first prototype for Google's space data center effort, Project Suncanter. Satlyt, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi, has already flown its software on two demonstration missions.

Afullo, a Kenyan American engineer, worked in Google's cloud computing business before a brief stint at SpaceX's Starlink communications network in 2024. He says both companies rejected his internal pitches for orbital computing.

"When I was at SpaceX, I tried to pitch this internally. They said no. When I was at Google, I tried to pitch this internally. They said no," Afullo told TechCrunch.

So he left SpaceX and co-founded Satlyt. The company does not plan to build its own spacecraft, unlike SpaceX, Google, or startups such as Starcloud and Cowboy Space Company. Instead, Satlyt builds software to operate AI models on satellites, an approach Afullo compares to VMWare and Snowflake—platforms that let users run complex software without managing 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 wants its software to work across many companies' satellites, letting them share the work of large computing jobs in space.

Proven Savings On Orbit

Satlyt's initial focus is operational efficiency. Spacecraft typically depend on ground-based flight controllers 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 can cut costs, whether by resolving anomalies or by processing sensor readings in orbit rather than on the ground.

The company has results to point to. Earlier this year, Satlyt deployed Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model onboard a spacecraft operated by Momentus. The model cut the size of a transmission about onboard software errors by more than 60%. Afullo says that kind of efficiency can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per satellite each year.

This week's 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 carries three customers. NASA is paying Satlyt to test protocols for cloud computing in space. Stellerian, a startup focused on tracking objects in orbit, wants to test image processing workloads. TakeMe2Space itself will demonstrate that the satellite can host other companies' software.

A Cloud Across Satellites

Few high-powered GPUs are in orbit today, so the near-term opportunity lies in workloads like the ones Satlyt is already running. The company's next project is bigger: a shared computing system—a cloud—spanning two different satellites, which it expects to attempt next year. Success would let Satlyt build a true compute cloud in orbit as a third-party provider to spacecraft builders.

"The way to think about it is that we turn your satellite into a revenue-generating managed service," Afullo said.

Non Sibi Ventures led the seed round. Partner Bernard Harris, who served as a NASA astronaut for more than 20 years, helped ground the firm's conviction in the business. The firm's thesis rests on Satlyt not depending on the most ambitious version of orbital data centers, a vision that faces uncertain economics and a launch bottleneck.

"We don't need data centers in space for Rama to be wildly successful, right?" Non Sibi partner Kent Lucas told TechCrunch. "It can just be driven by the number of satellites going up."

Afullo's target is to be live on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade. He expects virtually every spacecraft builder to put GPUs and similar advanced processors in their satellites by then.

"If you're putting up a satellite without putting up a GPU on it, at the very least, you're doing yourself a disservice, right?" he says.

Satlyt will appear at TechCrunch Disrupt's Battlefield competition, running October 13–15 in downtown San Francisco. The two-satellite cloud demonstration next year will show whether the company can convert early efficiency wins into a durable position as the software layer for orbital computing.