Top California Aerospace Startups (148)

The peaceful use of space is essential for continued prosperity on Earth—from communications and finance to navigation and logistics. True Anomaly builds innovative technology at the intersection of spacecraft, software, and AI to enhance the capabilities of the U.S., its allies, and commercial partners. We safeguard global security by ensuring space access and sustainability for all.

Doodle Labs designs and produces industrial-grade wireless networking solutions. The company focuses on mesh networking for robotic systems, providing high throughput, long-range Mesh Rider solutions for UAVs, UGVs, AMRs and other robotic applications. The company’s Helix Mesh Rider Radio was developed with sponsorship from DIU and is the Blue UAS program’s datalink of choice. Doodle Labs was named one Fast Company's "World's...

Red 6 is an innovative Augmented Reality (AR) technology startup leading the way in synthetic air combat training. Our primary technology, supporting our ATARS product, enables pilots to simulate the cognitive challenges of flying while accessing realistic, scalable training in dynamic outdoor environments

Turion Space is building the infrastructure to secure and sustain the future of space. Founded to address the growing need for space domain awareness, in-space servicing, and debris mitigation, Turion designs, builds, and operates spacecraft with real-world operational capability. Our vehicles are built for national security and commercial missions that require speed, autonomy, and resilience. We believe the next chapter of...

Empirical Systems Aerospace, Inc. (ESAero), an aerospace engineering design and manufacturing company, specializes in cost-effective development of innovative and advanced concepts, with emphasis on simple honesty and a track record of commitment. Since 2003, ESAero has served the needs of the engineering industry through its work on military and commercial conceptual air vehicle designs, electric and hybrid propulsion system development,...

Skyfront builds hybrid-electric drones that fly for 5 hours, a 10X improvement over battery powered drones, for use in long range infrastructure inspection, surveillance, and SAR missions.

At Auterion we care about providing enterprise with an ecosystem of software-defined drones, payloads, and third party applications within a single easy to use platform based on open-source standards. We’re leaders in an open-source movement bigger than ourselves and we’ve been on the same mission for over a decade, since our co-founder Lorenz Meier created Pixhawk, MAVLink, QGC, and PX4 (the...

For more than half a century, the Nikkiso Group has continued to innovate by providing original technologies and products – always striving to meet the demands of our customers, of society, and of the times in which we live. Today we operate around the world and have built a global reputation for unparalleled quality, dependability and exquisite engineering that’s driven...

Umbra builds next-generation space systems that observe the Earth in unprecedented fidelity. Our mission: Deliver global omniscience. To stay ahead of climate change, geopolitical risk, and other major crises and issues, we need a global understanding of what is changing, where, and how fast. Umbra provides easy access to the highest quality commercial satellite data available, which is an indispensable tool for...

We are solving last-mile delivery for small-satellites

B GARAGE was founded in 2017 by a Ph.D. graduate from Stanford University. After having spent over five years researching robotics, computer vision, aeronautics, and drone autonomy, the founder and team set their minds on building a future where aerial robots would become an integral part of our daily lives without anyone necessarily piloting them. Together, our common goal is...

Kittyhawk (HQ in Palo Alto, CA) is building a single-person, remotely-piloted electric aircraft with the goal of making airtaxis affordable, ubiquitous and eco-conscious. Founded by self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, Kittyhawk has been advancing aviation for more than a decade and has built and flown more than 100 aircraft. If anyone can do this,...

We empower people to safely operate complex systems. With nearly 70 years of expertise in human-machine interaction, STI's research-backed solutions enhance assessment, training, and human performance across aerospace, defense, and clinical applications.

Precious Payload is a US/UAE space-tech startup that makes planning and execution of satellite missions easier by taking care of mission and supply chain management. The company focuses on the digital transformation of space mission management and brings transparency into small satellite supply chains through its user-friendly software and vast network of providers. Its mission is to streamline satellite design,...

Anywhere in space at the lowest cost. Launcher develops the world’s most efficient rockets and transfer vehicles to deliver small satellites to orbit.

Space need not be the realm of the elite, and privileged few any longer. Vector was founded to break down those barriers by developing a platform to provide low cost, and reliable access to orbit. Vector allows our customers to focus on space applications and building companies around their technologies in space, and not the underlying launch and space hardware....

STADCO specializes in innovative designs, engineering, fabrication and machining of complex, high-precision, close tolerance parts, assemblies, and tooling for the aviation, space, defense, advanced research & development, and custom-engineered industrial equipment markets.

We believe that drones can transform our world for the better - saving lives and protecting our environment. Parallel Flight is developing technology to unlock radical new possibilities.

Sorcerer is deploying a global network of persistent airborne sensors to fuel weather forecasting. Our high-altitude balloons collect 1000x more data than existing systems and are already used daily by meteorologists to track extreme weather across the US and Central America.

Founded in 2024, Scout AI is a venture-backed defense technology company building the AI brain for defense robotics. Fury, Scout's Vision-Language-Action foundation model, is engineered to transform uncrewed platforms into intelligent, mission-adaptive agents. Designed for use across ground, air, sea, and space domains, Fury enables warfighter-level reasoning and one-to-many robotic coordination. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with a center of excellence...