Satlyt, headquartered in Nairobi and California, raises US$8m seed to run AI on satellites

Satlyt, a space-software startup with headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi, has raised a US$8 million seed round to let satellites run artificial intelligence (AI) programs in orbit, according to reports published on 1 October 2026. The round was led by Houston-based non sibi ventures.

Where is Satlyt based?

Reports published on 1 October give the company two headquarters. TechCrunch puts its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi; Payload says it operates from dual headquarters in Nairobi and Sunnyvale; Space in Africa lists a U.S. headquarters in Sunnyvale and an Africa headquarters in Nairobi. An earlier Space in Africa report, from April 2025, called it a San Francisco-based startup. None of these reports states where the company is legally registered.

What the software does

SiliconANGLE describes Satlyt's platform as software that lets satellites carrying graphics processing units (GPUs, the chips used to run AI) process some of the data they collect on board, which reduces the amount of information they must send to Earth.

The longer-term idea is more ambitious. According to Space in Africa, Satlyt wants to coordinate computing across spacecraft operated by different companies, creating "virtual AI data centers in space". TechCrunch reports that Satlyt does not plan to build its own spacecraft.

Rama Afullo, Satlyt's chief executive, founded the company; SiliconANGLE says it was founded in 2024. TechCrunch describes him as a Kenyan American engineer who previously worked in Google's cloud computing business, before a brief stint at SpaceX's Starlink network in 2024. TechCrunch quotes him as saying: "When I was at SpaceX, I tried to pitch this internally. They said no. When I was at Google, I tried to pitch this internally. They said no."

Who is backing it

According to Space in Africa, other investors in the round include TLCOM, Antler, Slauson & Co., Launch Africa Ventures, Enza Capital, Askya Investment Partners, Demos, BAG Collective, Gaingels and Axian Investment, among others, and existing investors also made follow-on investments. Payload reports that Afullo says the seed round brings total funding to "well past $10M"; the figure comes from the chief executive and has not been independently confirmed.

According to Space in Africa, the money will go towards developing the virtual data centres, expanding engineering and customer delivery teams and scaling software deployments across spacecraft operated by other companies. Payload says the company plans to hire engineers and invest in research and development.

Tests so far

TechCrunch reports that Satlyt deployed Google DeepMind's Gemma AI model on a spacecraft operated by Momentus, and that the model cut the size of a transmission about onboard software errors by more than 60%. SiliconANGLE says the platform reduced the telemetry that had to be sent to Earth for analysis by more than 64%. The two outlets word the result differently, and neither figure has been independently verified.

SiliconANGLE says the first satellite carrying Satlyt's platform was launched into low-Earth orbit in March, and that another was scheduled to launch on 1 October aboard a SpaceX rocket. TechCrunch says that satellite was built by TakeMe2Space, an Indian startup. ThePrint reports that TakeMe2Space's MOI-1A satellite lifted off on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California; reports have not said whether the satellite has made contact with the ground. According to SiliconANGLE, NASA will use the software to test orbital computing methods, and Stellerian, a startup, plans to run image-processing algorithms on it. TechCrunch says NASA is paying Satlyt to test protocols for cloud computing in space.

Satlyt also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kenya Space Agency on 24 April 2025, covering AI-enabled Earth observation, in-orbit edge computing and inter-satellite networking for uses such as agriculture, climate monitoring and conservation, Space in Africa reported at the time.

What happens next

TechCrunch reports that the company expects to attempt to build a shared computing system, a cloud, spanning two satellites next year, and that Afullo's hope is for Satlyt to be live on 20% of satellites by the end of the decade. These are company targets, not independent forecasts.

Space in Africa says Satlyt's leadership team is entirely Kenyan American, with a substantial engineering presence in Nairobi. The reports do not say how many people work in Nairobi.