Starlyte exists because we came at microscopy from opposite directions and met at the same frustration. Software that was powerful on paper, punishing in practice. We decided to fix it.
Austin Blanco spent 20 years inside microscopy, imaging, and custom engineering. He ran an R&D optical systems firm. He watched researchers fight the same software battles for two decades: drivers that didn't ship, vendor SDKs that didn't play well, support queues that didn't move.
Jacob Gewerth came from somewhere else entirely. Six years in the U.S. Army Infantry. Eight years as a deputy sheriff. Four years building custom software. He looked at the microscopy tools and asked the question insiders had stopped asking: why does this have to be this hard?
In 2023 they teamed up. The plan was simple. Austin would bring 20 years of knowing exactly what researchers and engineers need. Jacob would bring an outsider's insistence that powerful software should also feel human to use. Together they started building Nebula.
20 years in microscopy, imaging, and custom engineering. President of Advanced Research Consulting, an R&D optical systems engineering and software firm he founded in 2014.
Austin brings the insider knowledge. He has spent two decades next to researchers, inspection engineers, and integrators, watching what actually breaks in the field. That is the perspective Nebula was built on.
Six years U.S. Army Infantry. Eight years deputy sheriff. Four years building custom software for biotech, life sciences, and industrial companies. Founder of Maka Solutions LLC.
Jacob brings fresh eyes and a builder's instinct for clarity. When users say the software feels simpler than anything else they have tried, that is his doing. Complexity is easy. Making complexity feel simple is the job.
Powerful tools do not have to feel like a punishment. If a researcher needs a two-week training course to run their first acquisition, something is broken. We build for the human at the microscope, not the spec sheet.
When a customer emails us, they reach the people who wrote the code. Not a ticket queue. Not a chat bot in another timezone. That is why we only onboard 5 customers at a time: so every one of them gets the engineers, not the wait.
We do not sell potential. We sell a working rig. If Nebula does not support your hardware after onboarding, you get your money back. It is the only offer we would trust if we were on the other side of the table.
The best way to understand what we built is to watch it run on your own rig. Book a 30-minute demo with one of the founders.