Satlyt Secures $8M to Turn Orbital Satellites into Managed Cloud Services

Satlyt, which maintains operations in Sunnyvale and Nairobi, is positioning itself as the Android of the space industry. Rather than building proprietary hardware or spacecraft, the company develops a software platform that abstracts away the underlying infrastructure, allowing users to deploy complex AI workloads across diverse satellite fleets. This approach aims to solve the bottleneck of expensive, slow data downlinks by enabling spacecraft to process sensor readings and resolve anomalies autonomously on-site.

The startup has already demonstrated success, notably deploying Google DeepMind’s Gemma model on a Momentus spacecraft to reduce error-reporting data transmissions by over 60%. This efficiency translates to significant cost savings for operators. A new mission launching this Thursday, involving a TakeMe2Space satellite, will further test the technology for clients including NASA and space surveillance firm Stellerian.

Non Sibi Ventures led the $8 million round, bolstered by the expertise of partner Bernard Harris, a veteran NASA astronaut. While industry giants like SpaceX are racing to build massive orbital data centers, Satlyt is targeting immediate utility. By focusing on the existing influx of satellites rather than waiting for large-scale infrastructure to mature, Afullo aims to have his software running on 20% of all satellites by 2030, transforming every orbit-bound craft into a revenue-generating managed service.