Satlyt, a company based in Sunnyvale and Nairobi, has raised $8 million in a seed round led by non sibi ventures. These funds are intended to scale the software that allows artificial intelligence models to run directly on satellites.
Founded by Rama Affullo, a former product manager at Google and SpaceX, the company aims to enable multiple spacecraft to jointly perform resource-intensive computing tasks in orbit. Unlike competitors such as SpaceX, Google, or Starcloud, Satlyt does not manufacture the spacecraft themselves.
Instead, the startup develops a horizontal operating system designed to run on various satellites from different companies. Affullo draws a parallel between the company's architectural strategy and established corporate solutions like VMware and Snowflake. Satlyt positions its software as an open ecosystem, aiming to create a foundational architecture, while orbital data center pioneers operate like the iPhone.
Satlyt's software has already been used in two demonstration missions, which helped reduce the financial costs associated with transmitting huge volumes of raw data to Earth. Earlier this year, the platform was deployed aboard the Momentus spacecraft using Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model.
This deployment reduced the volume of data transmission related to software errors by more than 60%. Affullo notes that such operational savings can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars per satellite annually. This week, the software will be launched on a SpaceX rocket along with Google's Project Suncatcher prototype. The mission uses a spacecraft built by the Indian startup TakeMe2Space, which supports testing NASA cloud computing protocols, Stellerian image processing, and TakeMe2Space operations.
The attracted capital will allow Satlyt to implement the next major stage—creating a unified computing system spanning two separate satellites next year. Achieving this goal will enable the company to function as a third-party service with a fully operational cloud computer in orbit.
Satlyt's strategy transforms standard satellites into revenue-generating managed services. Participating in the top 5% of corporate software seed funding deals in the US by capital raised, the $8 million round highlights strong investor interest in software-based space infrastructure. This information was first published on Ventureburn.
