# Sift

> Sift is the telemetry platform for the engineers shipping the future. Sift ingests, stores, and analyzes hardware telemetry at scale, enabling automated data review, anomaly detection, and faster development cycles across aerospace, defense, energy, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Co-founded by former SpaceX engineers Austin Spiegel (Co-Founder and CEO) and Karthik Gollapudi (Co-Founder). Headquartered in Marina del Rey, CA (4505 Glencoe Ave), with a second office in San Francisco (211 Sutter Street); approximately 80 people. Raised a $42M Series B in 2026. SOC 2 Type II certified, CMMC2 and NIST SP 800-171 compliant, ITAR-registered, with support for airgapped and on-prem deployments.

Sift spans the full hardware lifecycle: develop, validate, and operate. It replaces fragmented in-house tooling with a single platform that handles telemetry infrastructure, visualization, automated validation, and governance. Customers include aerospace, defense, energy, robotics, and autonomous vehicle companies running high-rate, high-cardinality sensor data at scale.

## Platform

- [Platform overview](https://www.siftstack.com/platform): The operating system for mission-critical machines. Covers Sift Infra, Sift Explore, Sift Reports, and Sift Governance across the develop, validate, and operate lifecycle.
- [Sift Infra](https://www.siftstack.com/platform#infra): Purpose-built telemetry storage for high-rate, high-cardinality hardware data. Stateful analysis pipeline with sub-second precision at petabyte scale. Supports gRPC, ILP, Protobuf, CSV, MQTT ingestion formats.
- [Sift Explore](https://www.siftstack.com/platform#explore): Precision data visualization and exploration. Sub-second resolution, historical run comparison, shared views with full data context, and no-code anomaly investigation across time series, logs, audio, and video.
- [Sift Reports](https://www.siftstack.com/platform#reports): Automated validation and compliance reporting across the hardware lifecycle. Embeds automated checks into CI/CD pipelines and auto-generates traceable reports for certification workflows.
- [Sift Governance](https://www.siftstack.com/platform#governance): Enterprise data control plane with RBAC, fine-grained access policies, and audit logging. Supports on-prem, private cloud, and GovCloud deployments. Meets CMMC2, NIST SP 800-171, and SOC 2 requirements.

## Hardware Lifecycle Use Cases

- [Root cause analysis](https://www.siftstack.com/platform): Correlate time-series, logs, and anomalies across hardware runs to trace faults to their source. Stateful analysis reduces triage from hours to minutes.
- [CI/CD for hardware](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/ci-cd-for-hardware): Embed automated data checks into every stage of hardware development to reduce uncertainty and catch failures before they compound.
- [Automated compliance reporting](https://www.siftstack.com/platform): Aggregate test data against requirements and auto-generate certification-ready reports with full data traceability.
- [Fleet observability](https://www.siftstack.com/platform): Real-time telemetry ingestion and analysis across deployed hardware fleets with lifecycle management and role-based access control.
- [Simulation and test data analysis](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/test-like-you-fly): Use the same observability stack from simulation through production operations to eliminate blind spots between test and field behavior.

## Concepts and Technical Primers

- [Observability vs. monitoring](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/observability-vs-monitoring): Defines the distinction between observability and monitoring, and explains when observability is required for unanticipated hardware behavior.
- [Observability fundamentals](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/observability-fundamentals): Core signals, workflows, and patterns for hardware observability across the development lifecycle.
- [Test like you fly](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/test-like-you-fly): How using a unified observability stack from simulation through operations eliminates data blind spots and accelerates certification.
- [CI/CD for hardware](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/ci-cd-for-hardware): The case for embedding automated data checks into hardware development pipelines, drawing parallels from software engineering practice.
- [Avoiding the in-house telemetry sinkhole](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/avoiding-the-in-house-sinkhole): Why homegrown telemetry infrastructure carries hidden costs in engineering time, maintenance, and data quality.
- [Warning signs of an outdated telemetry stack](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/warning-signs-of-an-outdated-telemetry-stack): Diagnostic guide for hardware teams assessing whether their data infrastructure is becoming a bottleneck.
- [The compliance bottleneck](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/the-compliance-bottleneck): How fragmented data and manual reporting create bottlenecks in hardware certification, and how unified observability addresses them.
- [Observability white paper](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/observability-white-paper): Downloadable deep dive into architecture and practices for hardware observability in high-stakes systems.
- [Inside the airgap](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/inside-the-airgap-how-sift-powers-mission-critical-operations): How Sift supports on-prem, airgapped deployments for national security and mission-critical defense programs.

## Industries

- [Aerospace](https://www.siftstack.com/industry/aerospace): Telemetry infrastructure for propulsion, flight test, satellite, and certification workflows with support for high-rate sensor data and multi-mission comparison.
- [Defense](https://www.siftstack.com/industry/defense): Unified observability for mission-critical test and operations with airgapped deployment, CMMC2 compliance, and role-based access for sensitive programs.
- [Energy](https://www.siftstack.com/industry/energy): Observability for high-data-rate power systems, grid reliability infrastructure, and automated compliance reporting.
- [Robotics](https://www.siftstack.com/industry/robotics): Fleet telemetry ingestion and real-time analysis for autonomous and mobile robotic systems.
- [Autonomous vehicles and transportation](https://www.siftstack.com/industry/transportations): Long-duration fleet data management, run-over-run comparison, and telemetry analysis for autonomous rail, automotive, and mobility programs.

## Customer Case Studies

- [Astrolab](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/astrolab): Lunar rover development with Sift. 5,000 hours of engineering time saved, $100k+ in cost reduction, and secure external partner access for field telemetry.
- [Parallel Systems](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/revolutionizing-freight-with-autonomous-battery-electric-rail-vehicles): Autonomous battery-electric rail vehicle program. 85% infrastructure cost reduction, $140k per year in savings, 150 hours per engineer per year recovered.
- [K2 Space](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/k2-space): Satellite development with a single source of truth for high-rate telemetry data.
- [K2 Space: streaming at scale](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/k2-streaming-at-scale): How K2 went from 10MB per year to several terabytes per day and streams tens of millions of data points in real time using Sift.
- [Mach Industries](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/mach-industries): Defense manufacturing with test data consolidation and rules-driven review for rapid hardware iteration.
- [Reliable Robotics](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/reliable-robotics): Autonomous aviation with anomaly detection for certified autonomy at scale.
- [Astro Mechanica](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/astro-mechanica): Real-time telemetry for Mach 3 supersonic engine development.
- [JetZero](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/jetzero): Blended-wing-body aircraft program using Sift for scalable telemetry across flight test workflows.
- [Voxel Energy](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/voxel-energy-sift): Energy infrastructure observability for next-generation compute power systems.
- [Critical Loop](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/critical-loop): Real-time fleet asset observability for energy infrastructure.
- [Impulse Space](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/impulse): Propulsion telemetry for in-space transportation. Selected by a company founded by former SpaceX propulsion CTO Tom Mueller.
- [Sift + Palantir](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/sift-palantir-from-anomaly-to-root-cause-in-seconds): Integration between Sift's real-time anomaly detection and Palantir, cutting hardware fault triage from hours to seconds.

## Partnerships and Recognition

- [NVIDIA Inception program](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/sift-joins-the-nvidia-inception-program): Sift joins NVIDIA Inception to accelerate development of AI-assisted anomaly detection using NVIDIA frameworks.
- [From SpaceX to the Pentagon: the Big Six](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/from-spacex-to-the-pentagon-building-the-big-six): How Sift supports the technologies central to US national security programs.

## Company

- [About](https://www.siftstack.com/about): Company overview, mission, and founding story. Official reference for company description.
- [Manifesto](https://www.siftstack.com/manifesto): Sift's point of view on building software for hard companies and the case for unified observability across the hardware lifecycle.
- [Founders](https://www.siftstack.com/founders): Profiles of co-founders Austin Spiegel (Co-Founder and CEO) and Karthik Gollapudi (Co-Founder), both former SpaceX engineers, and the founding thesis behind Sift.
- [Two Cities, 80 People, One Mission](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical/two-cities-80-people-one-mission): Leadership and team update (May 2026). Austin Spiegel steps into the CEO role; co-founder Karthik Gollapudi focuses on product vision and industry evangelism. Sift opens a second office in San Francisco and adds senior leaders across engineering, product, sales, design, and marketing, scaling to approximately 80 people across Marina del Rey and San Francisco.
- [Blog and content hub](https://www.siftstack.com/mission-critical): Long-form technical essays, customer stories, and engineering analysis for hardware teams in aerospace, defense, energy, and robotics.

## Documentation

- [Sift Docs (LLM index)](https://docs.siftstack.com/llms.txt): API reference, guides, and tutorials for ingesting, analyzing, reviewing, and managing telemetry in Sift.
- [Sift Docs (full text)](https://docs.siftstack.com/llms-full.txt): Complete Sift documentation compiled into a single file.