Founded on a hardware problem, not a business trend
Rob DeMillo founded Sophia Space in 2023. The prior years had been spent close to satellite programs — embedded systems development, AIT phases, the hand-offs between payload teams and ground segment. The recurring pattern was the same on every program: operators were building sophisticated sensors, then watching most of the data they collected rot in a downlink queue because the communication link couldn't keep up with the payload.
The question that led to TILE was simple: the satellite already has power. It already has the data. The only thing missing is compute that can operate reliably in the orbital environment — not COTS silicon with a thin radiation narrative, but hardware engineered for TID accumulation over a 3–5 year LEO mission, with SEL protection, ECC memory, and a power draw that fits within the EPS budget of a 6U or larger CubeSat.
We are not building a repurposed cloud compute module. We are not building a ground-station software product that happens to talk to satellites. TILE is purpose-built orbital compute hardware, designed from the start for unattended operation in the radiation environment. That distinction shapes every engineering decision we make.
Sophia Space received angel backing in 2025. We are a small team in El Segundo. We are building something the satellite industry has needed for a long time and has not had done well.