Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸

Cofounder and CEO at EraDrive

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@andyfang hopefully solves the "where are we going to order food from today" problem at eradrive

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

Autonomy is optional for cars. You can still grab the wheel. There is no grabbing the wheel in orbit.

That was one of the themes I enjoyed digging into with @matvogels and the @BlackFlagVC team on Pirates Only. We covered why today's satellites are effectively blind and micromanaged from the ground, how we validated vision-based navigation on NASA's Starling mission before raising a dollar, and why autonomy, on the edge and on the ground, is a requirement (not a feature) for everything ahead of us: megaconstellations, orbital data centers, space domain awareness, and in-orbit servicing.

Thanks for having me on!

[Black Flag @BlackFlagVC]

"There would be 50 engineers on the ground operating a million satellites in orbit. Autonomy today...for for self-driving cars, it's an option, right? You can still get in your car and drive around in your car. Autonomy is not optional for space."

We were very happy to host Sumant Sharma, co-founder and CEO of EraDrive, on the most recent episode of Pirates Only. EraDrive is building autonomy technology for spacecraft, with software that has already flown on four NASA satellites.

We go deep into the past, present, and future of space, and all the opportunities that it has in store.

Topics include:

🛰️ Why satellites today are effectively blind and micromanaged from the ground

🌌 How EraDrive validated vision-based navigation on NASA Starling before raising a single dollar

🛸 The three biggest problems autonomy solves, and why it's not an option for the future of space management

🌍 How many objects are in space today, and how quickly this number will grow in the coming decade

💸 Hard tech fundraising advice for founders currently in the trenches

🏴‍☠️ And so much more!

Watch the full episode right here on X! 🎧

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

President Trump just signed an executive order to:

- Build a moon base
- Deploy nuclear reactors to the moon
- Build out an industrial base in space
- Clean up space debris
- Make space travel cheap
- Return Americans to the moon, immediately

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@semil @aashaysanghvi_ Also excited to join the @PointNineCap family! Thank you for co-leading the round with Haystack @ric0seq @pawell @chrija!

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

(1/4) EraDrive just closed our seed round 🚀 Backstory: at IEEE AeroConf in Montana, a dinner after an awards ceremony and a late-night hallway chat with Justin Kruger quietly changed my trajectory. I didn’t say yes immediately (I actually said no first 😅).

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

Mega thank you to @semil @aashaysanghvi_ at Haystack for leading the round!

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@usenotchai https://t.co/ksL3iLGucM

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@NavalInstitute @davidzagaynov what’s your take on nuclear powered seaplanes?

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@DavidZagaynov Amazing how much confidence you can pack into a startup that’s just a pitch deck and a wetsuit.

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@DavidZagaynov How many of these runways are near places where people actually wanna go?

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@sdw Just some sort of screensaver that shows a pyramid

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@arjunpkishore @TheBrianMcManus To add to these excellent points I am not sure the thumbnail needed to have a map in the first place. For a YouTuber doing so much due diligence I think touching this sensitive topic at this time is a miss.

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@randal_olson @EdwardTufte Stanley’s line is very Stanley

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@ZhaoMandi Are you sure it’s not because your major of study for the phd falls under the technology alert list while your undergrad major didn’t?

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@SpigenWorld Make this for iPhone 14 pro please

[Sumant Sharma🚀🛫📸 @sumant_neo]

@levelsio Hype dying down or everyone who needed to get their photos got them and are probably set for a few years.