Spacetech startup SatLeo Labs is bringing accurate thermal imaging to India
Ahmedabad-based spacetech startup SatLeo Labs is gearing up to launch its first proprietary satellite to capture accurate thermal data in an experimental mission in February 2026.
Determining the exact temperature figures to help regulate Earth’s atmospheric state has always been a difficult task—largely because most temperature data is estimated by interpolating IoT devices.
In 2019, Ranendu Ghosh, a former ISRO scientist for 28 years, partnered with technologists Shravan Bhati and Urmil Bakhai to figure out solutions to the problem. Eventually, the trio realised the only way to get near-exact data would be if it were assessed through space.
In 2023, the trio launched SatLeo Labs, with Bhati as its CEO, Ghosh as CTO, and Bakhai as CSO. Incubated in IN-SPACe, the Ahmedabad-based spacetech startup builds satellites to conduct thermal imaging from Low Earth Orbit.
The multi-sectoral need for exact thermal imaging
SatLeo Labs’ 25-member team is currently gearing up to launch its proprietary satellite for an experimental mission in February 2026.
“Our satellite will be equipped with two cameras: the thermal camera to capture the infrared data, and the second one will capture the visual data. This hybrid data will reach cloud servers where our AI tools will refine it,” says Bhati.
Following that, the spacetech startup will also conduct a main mission in the fourth quarter of the following year.
Capturing accurate thermal data can help in multiple sectors: helping farmers find early signs of crop stress, detecting buried structures in archaeology, disaster management, and mapping urban heat islands in big cities.
Unlike present thermal data, which is coarse at 300-metre resolution and available every 18-21 days, SatLeo Labs’ satellites would be able to harness data at a sub-10-metre resolution twice every day.
Growth in the spacetech market
SatLeo Labs largely follows a B2B and B2G model. While still in R&D, the spacetech startup has begun a few pilot projects with the Tumakuru City Corporation, where it’s monitoring a 40-acre unmanaged waste dump to identify urban heat islands and detect toxic greenhouse gases. As the satellites are still being developed, the mapping is done using drones.
Additionally, Tumakuru faced heat waves and heat island problems last year. Using these datasets, SatLeo Labs is mapping the heat patterns of the city, identifying areas where heat is being emitted more, especially from industrial zones.
The founders say that the Earth observation market is becoming increasingly competitive, especially in the thermal imaging segment, with many players deploying similar applications. While it competes with global companies like the Munich-based OroraTech and Sant Cugat del Vallès-based Aistech Space, SatLeo Labs maintains an edge.
“We stand apart from a hardware innovation standpoint. Our design efficiency also allows us to deliver this capability more cost-effectively—with one satellite doing the work of two (capturing both thermal and visual data)—making our services accessible to both large sectors like defence and smaller users such as farmers,” explains Bhati.
At present, the spacetech startup aims to take its heat island solutions to the Middle East and is in talks with the Dubai Municipality and certain undisclosed bodies in Saudi Arabia. To ensure the expansion—both from a product and business perspective—it raised $3.3 million in April 2025 in a pre-seed round led by Merak Ventures.
SatLeo Labs is part of YourStory’s Tech30 cohort—a selection of India’s most promising startups of 2025—unveiled at TechSparks Bengaluru.
Edited by Suman Singh