This week we go to space. Extellis is the Tweener Fund’s first space investment, and founder Michael Boyarsky spent more than a decade at Duke building the metamaterial antenna technology that powers it. This one leans heavily into the tech and the company: what metamaterials are, why satellites overheat, and how you get a satellite into orbit without building a spaceship factory. Along the way, there are some great lessons for any researcher thinking about spinning a company out of the lab.
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Who is Michael?
Michael Boyarsky is the CEO and co-founder of Extellis, a Durham-based satellite imaging company building synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites around a patented metamaterial antenna. Michael studied physics at Boston College, where he got hooked on metamaterials doing three years of undergraduate research. He then took a short detour into robotics for a master’s in mechanical engineering at Marquette University. In 2014, he came to Duke for a PhD in electrical engineering in David’s metamaterials lab, which is arguably the best in the world. He planned to be in and out in five years. Twelve years later, he’s still in North Carolina, and the research he started in his first year at Duke is now a venture-backed company headed for orbit. David is his co-founder.
How We Met
I have been a space nerd since Star Wars, and the Tweener Fund had wanted to make a space investment for a long time. About three years ago, I got a call from someone at Duke. They had a scientist with a meta material that was great for satellites, and he wanted advice on fundraising. That scientist was Michael. The Tweener Fund is now an investor, and I will admit that every time we talk, I learn about 50 new things and I hope you do too!
Highlights
The 2% moment: As a third-year graduate student presenting at a SAR conference, Michael heard a competitor boast that its satellite could operate 2% of the time. His reaction, “You’re launching things into space for 2%?”, sparked the idea behind Extellis.
Space is cold, but heat is the problem: Satellites struggle to dissipate the heat they generate because space offers no surrounding material to conduct it away. Today’s SAR satellites typically run out of power and overheat around the same time, severely limiting uptime.
The company started in a spreadsheet: Michael used measured results from his DARPA-funded ground prototype to model spacecraft design, solar power, launch costs, operations, and ultimately price per image. That analysis convinced him the technology could become a business.
Metamaterials 101: Metamaterials derive their properties from the geometry of their structures rather than their chemical composition. Extellis makes structures roughly one-tenth of an inch in size using printed circuit boards, sometimes puzzling PCB manufacturers with their unusual designs.
The invisibility cloak is real: David’s lab demonstrated a working invisibility cloak at microwave frequencies using metamaterials to steer electromagnetic waves around an object and reconstruct them on the other side.
A 12-year overnight success: Michael arrived at Duke in June 2014, focused his qualifying exam on satellite imaging just 15 months later, and spun out Extellis in 2024.
The seed round: Extellis closed an oversubscribed $6.8 million seed round in fall 2025, led by Triangle-based Oval Park Capital, followed by a 2026 extension headlined by Shell Ventures.
The world is not uniformly interesting: Limited satellite imaging capacity forces commercial customers to compete with government buyers for images. Extellis aims to dramatically increase image volume, serving defense alongside agriculture, energy, insurance, shipping, and disaster response.
Don’t become a spaceship factory: Extellis contracted Colorado-based Astro Digital to build its satellite using flight-proven, modular components. Astro Digital will also manage testing and mission operations.
The pathfinder by the numbers: Extellis’s first satellite is expected to weigh 150 to 250 pounds, unfold to roughly the size of a large desk, and orbit 350 to 400 miles above Earth. The company is targeting a five-year operational life and an early 2028 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket.
Market pull beats technology push: Michael advises researchers to build companies around genuine market problems rather than searching for applications for technologies developed in the lab.
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