Satlyt secures $8 million to advance AI processing on satellites

Satlyt, a space-tech startup with its African headquarters in Nairobi, has raised $8 million in seed funding to develop software that allows satellites to process data and run artificial intelligence applications using computers already installed inside spacecraft.

The round was led by non sibi ventures, with participation from TLCOM, Antler, Slauson & Co., Launch Africa Ventures, Enza Capital, Askya Investment Partners, Demos, BAG Collective, Gaingels, Axian Investment and other investors.

Satlyt said it will use the funding to expand its engineering and customer delivery teams, and to deploy its software across more spacecraft operated by other companies.

Software for onboard computing

Founded in 2024 by Kenyan-American entrepreneur Rama Afullo, Satlyt does not manufacture spacecraft computing hardware. Instead, its software is designed to operate on hardware already inside satellites. The company says its system can be uplinked, retrofitted or loaded onto spacecraft before launch, and is intended to work across different satellite designs.

Satlyt says it already has software operating in orbit and has worked with NASA and Google. In an earlier deployment, Google’s Gemma artificial intelligence model ran on a satellite, where it analysed system logs and identified software errors and stack traces without first sending the information to Earth, according to the company.

“Running applications on existing spacecraft gives operators a way to do more with the computing hardware they already have in orbit,” Afullo, Satlyt’s founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “Our job is to make those applications practical to deploy and operate.”

He told TechCabal that the company’s objective is for spacecraft to process information locally, run artificial intelligence applications and eventually coordinate computing across multiple satellites.

Long-term network ambition

Satlyt’s longer-term plan is to connect computing resources across satellites and create what it calls virtual artificial intelligence data centres. The company envisions spacecraft operated by different organisations contributing computing capacity to a shared network.

Afullo clarified that Satlyt’s immediate focus is not to replace terrestrial data centres. “The goal is edge compute for satellite systems,” he said.

Satellite operators pay Satlyt to install its software and help them use existing onboard computing capacity more efficiently, Afullo said. The company is also running paid pilots with large aerospace and defence contractors, while space agencies pay for specific technology development through research and development programmes.

Kent Lucas, managing partner at non sibi ventures, said Satlyt’s work on third-party spacecraft provided a foundation for a broader computing platform in space.

Africa’s digital and space ambitions

Africa currently has less than 1% of global data centre capacity, equivalent to 360 megawatts of active capacity. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association estimates that African countries will need to more than double their hosting capacity by 2030 to meet rising digital demand and support artificial intelligence training and deployment.

Market estimates put the average cost of building a data centre in Africa at about $10 million per megawatt, increasing to roughly $15 million per megawatt in markets such as Nigeria. Satlyt’s approach focuses on making use of computing resources already deployed in orbit rather than building the hardware itself.

The company is working with the University of Houston through NASA’s Glenn Research Centre on delay-tolerant networking technology under NASA’s Small Business Technology Transfer programme. It has also signed memoranda of understanding with the Kenya Space Agency and Angola’s Gabinete de Gestão do Programa Espacial Nacional.

Space in Africa values the continent’s space economy at $24.95 billion and projects that it will reach $39.52 billion by 2030. Afullo said Satlyt wants African engineers and companies to contribute to the software infrastructure needed to make satellites more useful.