Sophia Space raises $10M to scale TILE orbital compute network
Sophia Space advances TILE modular satellites after $10M seed
Fresh capital will bankroll a Pasadena startup focused on compact, rackable compute tiles designed to run data processing above the atmosphere. The company plans an in-orbit software demonstration in 2026 and aims to ship first customer modules in 2028, using a modular approach that marries power generation with passive thermal control.
Investors including Alpha Funds, KDDI Green Partners Fund and Unlock Venture Partners led the round, which follows an earlier $3.5 million pre-seed. That investor mix signals cross-border interest in space-native compute and strengthens Sophia’s balance sheet for engineering hires and partner development.
The hardware units — tabletop-sized and designed to connect into racks — use an integrated combination of sunlight harvesting and radiative thermal management to operate in low Earth orbit. Sophia’s architecture, labeled TILE, also factors orbit selection to exploit temperature cycles for cooling efficiency.
Management says the initial go-to-market will emphasize edge processing: performing preprocessing and AI inference on imagery and telemetry generated by Earth observation platforms. That positioning provides near-term revenue while the company iterates toward larger, denser orbital compute arrays.
Technical validation this year will rely on existing communications networks to move software payloads and extract processed outputs, reducing integration friction and testing real operational flows. The team plans to expand engineering headcount to refine thermal, power, and radiation-resilience subsystems as they scale TILE.
Founding technologist pedigree and a growth lead with enterprise hardware experience give the startup a blend of mission-space know-how and commercial scaling skills. The product roadmap ties hardware demonstrations to customer pilots, so commercial traction can begin before full-scale orbital data centers are attempted.
For partners that need lower-latency insight from satellites, on-orbit preprocessing can cut downlink volume and speed time-to-insight — a practical value proposition while launch and operations costs remain nontrivial. Sophia’s timeline creates a multiyear horizon for capability expansion, with incremental revenue steps along the way.
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