Satlyt, a startup building software to operate artificial intelligence models on satellites, has secured $8 million in seed funding and is set to launch its technology on a SpaceX rocket. Co-founded by Kenyan American engineer Rama Afullo after his internal pitches were rejected at both SpaceX and Google, Satlyt aims to provide a horizontally integrated ecosystem for space-based computing. The upcoming Thursday mission will feature Satlyt's software flying on a spacecraft built by TakeMe2Space, alongside Google's Project Suncatcher prototype.
The Sunnyvale and Nairobi-based company does not build its own spacecraft, instead positioning itself like VMware or Snowflake by offering software that works across multiple companies' satellites. Satlyt previously deployed Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model on a Momentus-operated spacecraft, which successfully reduced transmission data size for software errors by over sixty percent. The new mission supports multiple customers including NASA, space surveillance startup Stellerian, and TakeMe2Space, testing cloud computing protocols and image processing workloads in orbit.
The $8 million seed round was led by Houston-based Non Sibi Ventures, with participation from partner and former NASA astronaut Bernard Harris. Satlyt's software allows spacecraft to process sensor readings and resolve anomalies directly in space, bypassing expensive and slow ground downlinks to generate significant cost savings. The company ultimately plans to demonstrate a shared computing cloud spanning two different satellites next year.
This development matters because it establishes a third-party software layer for space hardware, potentially turning satellites into revenue-generating managed services without requiring dedicated orbital data centers.