Internal: Legion Space snags first place at TechRise pitch competition

From the Chicago Business Journal.

A Chicago startup that's building software for satellites took center stage at a TechRise pitch competition at SXSW last month and left with first place and $25,000 in new funding.

Legion Space offers a plug-and-play platform, LegionKIT, designed to help satellites communicate and run operations, bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to space.

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TechRise's Emerging Tech Competition featured five up-and-coming Midwest startups pitching in front of a national audience in Austin, Texas. It was hosted during SXSW in partnership with Midwest House, which promotes Midwest activity during the annual conference, along with local economic development organization World Business Chicago.

Legion Space founder Marwah Roussi said the startup will use the new funding for its first in-flight demonstration.

Roussi started the company after identifying a bottleneck in satellite technology, which she said is still "stuck in the landline era" where over 80% of data collected in space is never used.

Roussi said satellites essentially work as dummy computers that collect all kinds of information. The problem is operators have to wait for ground station passes to download that data, decrypt it and process it on Earth.

Legion Space's platform helps satellites share data and operate independently, giving operators better information for real-time decisions.

Roussi said the startup's pitch-competition win comes as the culture around space has changed dramatically.

The Artemis II mission, the first crewed lunar flyby in decades, launched April 1, putting everyone's eyes on the final frontier. But at the same time, the White House released a presidential budget request on April 3 that would cut NASA's budget by more than 20%, reported Reuters.