GrepBeat last wrote about Ultisim in the fall of 2022. Ultisim is a Chapel Hill-based startup leveraging a team of experts in AI and simulation to create digital twins and learning simulations with applications across industries.
For this piece, we caught up with Co-Founder and Chairman Richard Boyd (a past subject of The Download) to learn a bit more about him, how the startup has evolved since our last feature, and what might be next for Ultisim.
GrepBeat: Before we get started, for readers who may not be familiar, what’s the elevator pitch for Ultisim?
Richard Boyd: Organizations worldwide struggle with the “data tower of babel”—critical information trapped in incompatible formats across hundreds of systems. Every major organization sits on mountains of valuable data locked in incompatible systems—manufacturing sensors, maintenance logs, operational reports—all speaking different languages. This creates a $300 billion annual waste in just healthcare alone.
Ultisim’s Data Fusion Plane breaks down these data silos through our revolutionary Data Equivalence Principle. We normalize data and prep it for AI or digital twin application success regardless of source, permissions or format, creating comprehensive digital twins that mirror your entire operation.
The results? The US Navy saves weeks in troubleshooting. Army vehicle fleets reduce maintenance costs by 45%. Hospitals eliminate medical errors worth billions.
We’re not just another digital twin company; we’re the platform that makes digital transformation actually work by solving the data compatibility problem first.
GB: When we got in touch, we asked you to look back on your last feature in GrepBeat. When you read about where you were then, what stands out as the biggest change?
Boyd: From our focus on the visual layer and the metaverse we have really dialed in on the major issue every organization is facing. More than half of any AI or digital twin application project is about accessing relevant data. By combining my AI company Tanjo with Ultisim we now have the data fusion plane, machine learning and AI, and the robust visual layer all in one platform. It is an enormous strategic advantage over anyone without our unique experience.
GB: How has your team grown or evolved since we last spoke?
Boyd: Our big challenge has been integrating the 3D gaming and art teams with the data science and AI/ML teams in one process flow. We have healed part of our scaling issue with our partnership with the Potawatomi Business Development Group, a unique Super 8A native American business organization with reach across the U.S.
GB: What milestones or accomplishments are you most proud of?
Boyd: Signing our deal with Power School to deliver questsim.com AI-infused adventure learning games was an extraordinary feat with tremendous potential for students and teachers everywhere. Our ability to deliver compelling 3D AI game experiences on a Chromebook dramatically increases accessibility and reduces overhead on teachers.
More importantly, the kids love learning this way. They can learn the Pythagorean theorem by talking with Pythagoras in Samos, Greece. They learn about dinosaurs by visiting the Cretaceous and other periods and interacting with live data rich animated dinosaurs and environments.
Our association with UNC’s School of Data Science and Society and the UNC healthcare simulation lab is [also] really helping us make North Carolina the center for digital twins and AI applications.
GB: Has your funding situation evolved?
Boyd: After raising our initial round with Stealthpoint Technology Partners we have been scaling thanks to partnership with the PBDC and our small business innovation research and other grants. We recently won a grant together with UNC from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to advance our AI solutions.
These creative non-dilutive funding sources provide both validation for our unique technology but also fund our growth.
GB: You’ve been on the scene for a little while now. People may know you as a founder, but perhaps less so as a human being. Tell us something we don’t know about you that has nothing to do with your life as a founder.
Boyd: At the turn of the century (millennium, I suppose) I took some of my winnings from when we sold Red Storm Entertainment and bought a nine-acre vineyard near Venice, Italy. It had a 250-year-old house with three-foot-thick stone walls. There was a waterfall and it was rumored to have truffles in the oak woods. For a few years we tried to make wine, but it kept coming out sparkling. We ended up switching to grappa. Much easier to make. In the end we ripped out most of the grapes and planted olive trees instead.
GB: What partners or organizations (service providers, advisors, investors, if any) have been most helpful to you?
Boyd: As mentioned above, the Potawatomi Business Development Corporation, with Greg Kolean leading it, has been extraordinary. Greg’s business acumen and vision and creativity have taught me a great deal over the last year. I have raised a lot of money in my career and have counted people like Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman and MIT media lab director Joichi Ito as investors, but Greg taught me there is always more to learn and many more ways to solve for scale and business growth.
Our associations with UNC here in Chapel Hill are also proving very useful as we continue to solve for innovation in an accelerating age. It was at UNC that we also met the KPMG innovation and emerging tech unit run by Richard Entrup. They have been extraordinary in recognizing our value and designing for scale to commercial industries around the world.
GB: What is your next, biggest challenge?
Boyd: Our biggest challenge remains that our data fusion plane and our digital twin solution are needed in every industry. While we focus on healthcare with our hospital digital twins we also see massive need and opportunity across the federal government for our solutions to ensure data is prepped for AI applications and digital twins. We are spinning up as fast as we can with our PBDC partner.
We are seeing a lot of businesses attempt to build AI applications and digital twins in house, and reports from MIT and Gartner are now claiming failure rates above 75%. We are certain we can help these companies with our unusual 16 years of machine learning and 30 years of experience building simulated virtual worlds and digital twins.
We built a digital twin of a nuclear submarine in 2005, and NASA didn’t coin the term until 2010. We are eager to help, but scaling our unique expertise is difficult. Our recent partnership with Dr Stan Ahalt, the dean of the new UNC School of Data Science and Society is showing great promise for creating the data science heart and minds we will need to forge a better future.
GB: If you could go back in time to speak to yourself on the day you founded your startup, what advice would you give your younger self?
Boyd: I would certainly not talk myself out of it the way so many of my colleagues and mentors tried. After selling my last company to Lockheed Martin and running Virtual World Labs there, many said I should just join a venture capital group and serve on boards. That was the playbook. I did some of that. But I have to be true to myself. I love working with emerging technologies, solving hard problems and building teams to advance all of these technologies towards hopefully benevolent outcomes. So I would just have told myself to ignore the advice, double down and lean in.
GB: You finish a long, grueling day of starting up. You’re hungry and/or thirsty. Where in the Triangle are you headed?
Boyd: We are regulars at Glass Half Full, Squid’s (where I bartended in college) and Lantern in Chapel Hill. When we go further afield we love M Sushi in Durham and Dashi Ramen for lunch, as well as Pizzeria Toro. I hold a lot of events in the big rooms at Lulu Bang Bang near the airport. It’s a great central location with fantastic food and my old friends Pete Dorrance, Greg Overbeck and Kenny Carlsen are always accommodating.
