OXG Space, a Bengaluru spacetech startup, is building what it calls “edge cell towers in space” — shared orbital infrastructure that keeps satellites connected and processes their data in orbit, so Earth-observation intelligence reaches the ground in near-real time instead of hours later.
Founded by former ISRO engineers Akash Shetty and Sanjay Gorur, the company announced on 14 October 2026 that it had raised &rupee;17 crore in a round led by Aum Ventures through its India Innovation Fund II, with participation from Skyroot Aerospace co-founders Pawan Kumar Chandana and Bharath Daka, and Cosmoserve founder Chiran Phanindra, reported ET Entrepreneur and The Times of India.
The problem: satellites that are mostly out of touch
Most Earth-observation satellites work in store-and-forward mode: they capture imagery, hold it onboard, and transmit only when they pass over a ground station. According to the company, the delay between observation and actionable insight can run from four to 12 hours, satellites remain out of contact for roughly 74 per cent of each day, and up to 90 per cent of the data collected may never be turned into usable intelligence.
As EO constellations grow, the company’s argument is that no amount of additional ground stations or downlink capacity fixes the constraint — it is geometric. OXG’s pitch is to move the missing pieces into orbit itself.
Connect, compute, deliver — from orbit
OXG describes its platform as an edge-enabled orbital network with three functions, per the company’s official site:
- Connect — keep satellites continuously linked to the data, systems and users that depend on them, using connectivity inspired by 5G non-terrestrial networks;
- Compute — process imagery in orbit, fusing data from multiple satellites and turning raw captures into actionable intelligence before anything reaches Earth;
- Deliver — route those insights to the right place at the right time through a global orbital network.
The company is targeting defence, intelligence and commercial satellite operators in India and abroad — customers for whom faster analysis of optical, radar and signals-intelligence data has direct operational value.
Mission Synapse: a 12-month in-orbit demonstration
The fresh capital will fund Mission Synapse, a 12-month programme to demonstrate OXG’s core technologies in orbit. According to the funding announcements, the demonstration covers three systems:
- a Ka-band phased-array antenna targeting an initial 1 Gbps-class link, with a roadmap to 64 Gbps per spacecraft;
- a deployable mesh reflector for the ground link — a technology in which co-founder Akash Shetty has deep experience, having worked on an 18-metre deployable mesh reflector antenna at ISRO;
- a scalable deployable solar array to power the in-orbit computing and communications payloads.
Engineers from India’s space programme
Akash Shetty, co-founder and CEO, is a former ISRO engineer with over a decade of experience in spacecraft mechanisms and large deployable space antennas, including the 18-metre deployable mesh reflector antenna and spacecraft mechanisms for Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3, per the company’s site. He is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and INSEAD.
Sanjay Gorur, co-founder and CTO, is a former ISRO aerospace engineer with seven years of experience taking satellite systems from concept to flight hardware — including deployable solar arrays, antennas and hold-down release mechanisms flown on missions such as RISAT-2B and Microsat-2C. He is an alumnus of IIST, Thiruvananthapuram. Together, the founders bring more than 17 years of combined experience across India’s space programmes, reported BW Disrupt.
Backing the round through Aum Ventures, founding partner Chetan Mehta called OXG “an important layer of India’s space stack”, having previously backed Skyroot in launch and Sanyark Space and Cosmoserve in orbit, per ET Entrepreneur.
If Mission Synapse demonstrates as planned, OXG would join a small set of companies worldwide attempting to build the connectivity-and-compute layer of the orbital economy from India.
