Satlyt, founded by a former Google and SpaceX product manager, raises $8M to run AI on satellites
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Satlyt, a startup founded by former Google and SpaceX product manager Rama Afullo, has secured an $8 million seed round to develop software that enables AI processing on satellites. Rather than building its own spacecraft, Satlyt aims to create a horizontally integrated, open ecosystem similar to Android, allowing its software to operate across various companies' satellites. The company recently demonstrated efficiency gains by deploying Google DeepMind’s Gemma model on a Momentus spacecraft, which reduced transmission sizes for software errors by over 60%. This week, Satlyt will launch its software on a TakeMe2Space satellite serving customers including NASA, Stellerian, and the hardware provider itself. Investors from Non Sibi Ventures supported the venture, noting that success relies on the growing number of satellites rather than just large orbital data centers. Afullo envisions turning satellites into revenue-generating managed services and hopes to be active on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade.
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