Editor’s Brief¹

Last week , we looked at Castelion, the hypersonics startup applying SpaceX-style manufacturing to build next-gen strike weapons. The University of Arizona just received a $3.1M Army grant to support hypersonic vehicle development, and the Navy has started integrating hypersonic missiles aboard the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. (S/O to the Def Tech Signals family office for the intel, aka my Dad)

This week, we spotlight SkyFi, whose on-demand satellite imagery and analytics platform helps expose covert state actions in the gray zone—the space of strategic competition just below the threshold of open war. In an era where visibility into these operations is vital, SkyFi is emerging as a key tool for national security.

Special thanks to SkyFi Co-Founder and CEO Luke Fischer for sharing insights on the mission and his journey building it.

As always, your feedback shapes our coverage—reply directly with insights or questions.

Signal Brief: SkyFi - Redefining Intelligence Access Through Market-Driven Satellite Imagery

SkyFi is transforming satellite imagery and analytics acquisition through a user-friendly Earth Intelligence platform that prioritizes speed, access, and integration. Their web and mobile apps eliminate the traditional friction of ordering geospatial data, offering a streamlined alternative to legacy providers. Instead of owning satellites, SkyFi aggregates data from external partners and combines it with analysis tools, delivering a full-service experience to users.

Origins & Vision

SkyFi was founded in December 2021 by Luke Fischer, a former Army reconnaissance pilot, and Bill Perkins, a hedge fund manager. Both had run into the same roadblock: acquiring timely satellite imagery was painfully slow, expensive, and dependent on opaque, sales-driven processes.

Their response was to flip the model—offering transparent pricing, self-serve ordering, and image delivery in as little as 3–5 hours. Fischer describes it as the “Netflix of satellite imagery.” This approach resonated immediately. Within months of launch, SkyFi had over 20,000 users across 185 countries, from energy traders and researchers to humanitarian teams and defense professionals.

By launching in the commercial market first, SkyFi avoided government bureaucracy and built a user-focused product from the ground up. With integrations across leading providers like Maxar, Planet, and Umbra, SkyFi now sits at the intersection of satellite tasking and geospatial analytics, providing a unified, scalable platform for Earth intelligence.

Key Takeaways

• Unified Access - SkyFi connects multiple satellite providers through a single interface, shrinking tasking timelines from days to hours.

• Strategic Disruption - It offers imagery capabilities once exclusive to billion-dollar government systems at commercial prices.

• Operational Impact - Always-available commercial imagery changes adversary behavior by increasing detection risk.

• Defense Integration - SkyFi shows how venture-backed startups can move from prototype to mission-ready in the defense space.

Tech Radar: SkyFi's Key Platforms

SkyFi Marketplace – Earth Intelligence On Demand

SkyFi’s core platform lets users order satellite imagery and analytics through web and mobile apps or integrate via API. What began as a simple ordering tool is now a full-spectrum Earth intelligence service.

Key Capabilities

• Multi-Sensor Coverage - Imagery from 100+ satellites, including optical, SAR, and multispectral.

• On-Demand Tasking - Task new satellite imagery anywhere on Earth, typically fulfilled within 24–48 hours.

• Archive Access - Tap into a vast library of historical imagery for trend analysis.

• Automated Analytics - 40+ AI tools for object detection, change tracking, and volume estimation.

• Enterprise API -  Integrates directly into ISR and analytics systems for real-time, automated workflows.

Platform Integration: Planet and Maxar

SkyFi now powers Planet’s "Single Order Tasking" portal, a pay-as-you-go tasking interface built on SkyFi’s backend infrastructure. The portal allows users to order high-resolution imagery from Planet’s vast constellation—currently the world’s largest Earth observation fleet. SkyFi also powers Maxar’s “Maxar Connect” platform, which is focused on government users and enables access to the complete Maxar product suite. These integrations further affirm SkyFi’s scalable, enterprise-ready architecture and its value as middleware in the evolving space intelligence ecosystem.

Market Signals

Funding & Growth

• Total Funding: $17+ million across several rounds

• Latest Round: $7 million Seed round (May 2023) led by Balerion Space Ventures

• Notable Investors: J2 Ventures, Moving Capital, Balerion Space Ventures, IronGate Capital, Risk and Return

• Valuation: Currently Undisclosed

SkyFi’s platform model allows it to avoid the high capex of building satellites, focusing instead on the high-margin layers of data delivery and analysis. By starting commercial-first, it created a defense-ready system from the ground up and focused on usability instead of developing an exquisite interface to meet every requirement.

Contracts & Government Traction

SkyFi has secured early defense traction, including demonstrations with the U.S. Space Force and active engagements with intelligence community agencies. Due to the sensitive nature of these efforts, specific contract details remain undisclosed. Current disclosed defense work includes:

• GoTAK Integration - Imagery delivered directly into ATAK devices, improving frontline situational awareness.

• Army Futures Command - Ongoing work aligned with Army modernization efforts.

• U.S. Space Force - Developing interface to support Combatant Commands

• Enabled Intelligence Partnership - Pairing real-time imagery with secure AI labeling for DoD and IC missions.

SkyFi’s strategy—integrating into existing defense tech stacks—mirrors how many dual-use startups gain early traction. In operational environments where speed equals lethality, SkyFi’s ability to deliver near-real-time imagery has drawn interest from users across the commercial, defense, and intelligence landscape.

Looking Ahead

The future of conflict is rapidly changing—quiet, distributed, asymmetric, and increasingly economic. While large-scale invasions may still occur, much of the fight will unfold long before, or even without, a single shot being fired.

In the South China Sea, China’s “Great Wall of Sand” campaign turned barren reefs into fortified military outposts. Between 2013 and 2016, over 3,200 acres were dredged and militarized, with 3,000-meter runways, radar installations, missile sites, and deep-water harbors. Meanwhile, the Chinese Maritime Militia—masquerading as fishing vessels—routinely violates the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. These ships disable transponders, use rafting tactics, and overwhelm regional enforcement.

In the Amazon, illegal gold mining, driven by cartels and criminal syndicates, is tearing through protected rainforest. Rivers are poisoned with mercury, and Indigenous communities are being displaced as these illicit operations push deeper into remote territory.

Disruptions to rare earth metal mining can ripple through EV markets and defense supply chains, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine destabilized grain futures, impacted crop yields, and threatened food security worldwide.  Environmental degradation is no longer just a climate issue.  It’s a strategic vulnerability.

For SkyFi to reshape national defense, it must continue to scale access, sharpen its analytics, and prove reliability across use cases. Its imagery is already exposing this gray zone activity—from the illegal mining in the Amazon to the maritime militias in the South China Sea—offering a level of visibility that traditional intelligence often misses. As distributed, low-attribution threats multiply, SkyFi has the potential to deliver a faster, more adaptive sensing layer across military, environmental, and economic domains.

The company challenges the notion that space-based intelligence should remain exclusive to governments. By combining open access with AI-driven analysis, SkyFi equips non-state actors—researchers, NGOs, and watchdogs—with tools to track everything from troop movements to ecosystem collapse.  If SkyFi can sustain performance while broadening adoption, it could become a foundational layer in how the world anticipates and mitigates global disruption.

Challenges

• Infrastructure at Scale —  Sustaining persistent global coverage with high resolution and low latency without compromising speed or affordability

• Actionable Analytics — Refining AI and human-in-the-loop tools that surface insights clearly without overwhelming users or producing false positives.

• Regulatory Sensitivity — As SkyFi exposes militarized zones, illegal operations, and contested territories, it risks drawing pressure from both adversarial governments and sensitive allies.

• Dual-Use Complexity — Clear policies will be required to ensure responsible use and maintain credibility across both commercial and national security sectors.

Bottom Line:

SkyFi is redefining how intelligence is gathered, analyzed, and acted on—lowering the barrier to space-based surveillance and bringing real-time Earth observation to a broader set of users. By decoupling imagery acquisition from satellite ownership, SkyFi turns what was once a government-only capability into a responsive tool for defense, humanitarian, and commercial missions alike.

The next 6–12 months will be critical. If SkyFi can maintain reliability, deepen defense integrations, and scale its analytics, it could become a foundational layer of U.S. national security infrastructure—one that extends well beyond traditional ISR.

But seeing isn’t enough—not when rivals operate in the gray zone to reshape borders, bend markets, and test the limits of international law. The real challenge is turning visibility into leverage. By exposing these moves as they happen, it could offer the U.S. and its allies a new way to compete: not just with firepower, but with speed, clarity, and public accountability.

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1  The views expressed in this newsletter are my own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or any government agency. Mention of companies, technologies, or products is not an endorsement or recommendation. The content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.