Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:00:00 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:00:00] S0: This is the World War three. [00:00:01] S1: This where I think we're headed, and we're in it, but it's just getting started. [00:00:03] S0: What does, like, 2035 look like? [00:00:05] S1: Precision strikes, strikes from space, a lot of space weapons in ten years. After, like, three years of development, we're shipping Bullfrogs onto the battlefield now. [00:00:12] S0: What are you guys building in plain English? [00:00:14] S1: One of our tag lines is if it flies, it dies, which we take seriously. Basically, it's a robotic gun that can auto target and shoot drones. Bullfrog is... The core of it is a computer vision tracking software. It uses modern computer vision techniques coupled with modern day neural nets to identify, detect, and track targets. [00:00:31] S0: How do you think about responsibility that you have at the business? [00:00:34] S1: Yeah. I think this is a pretty dark industry. When I'm joking, it's really just hiding sadness sometimes. [00:00:40] S0: Hi, everybody. I'm Alexa von Tobel. I'm so excited to be joined by my fellow partner Charlotte Ross here and one of our most energetic founders, Steven Simoni, the co founder of ACS, Allen Control Systems. Steve, thrilled to have you. [00:00:57] S1: Thanks for having me on.
00:00:57 · Steven Simoni, Alexa von Tobel
[00:00:57] S1: Thanks for having me on. [00:00:58] S0: We've now, Charlotte and I both together, have now known you truly since the beginning of Inspired, which is almost seven years. I want to just quickly talk about the first time we met you. Do you remember this, Charlotte? No, I totally do. Yeah. You came in to we didn't even have an office yet. We were barely up and running. You came to present to us under Bebot. I very clearly Bebot was a restaurant tech that you sold to DoorDash for $150,000,000 And I remember really clearly Charlotte and I being like, man, great team, incredible team. These three co founders are special. There's something incredible here. But it's restaurant tech, we just don't think it's big enough, and we ended up not investing. [00:01:37] S1: That's probably a good idea. [00:01:38] S0: And fast forward, you took the technology and strategy and everything and same three people, and then decided to build ACS, Control Systems, and came back to us. And actually, we got to be one of your first investors. And I remember when Charlotte called me and was like, hey, Steve called. And on that minute, we're like, yes, we're going to invest. It's a much bigger idea. It's defense tech. So thank you so much for letting Well, us [00:02:08] S1: be in you. The first [00:02:08] S0: phone [00:02:09] S1: You guys were very nice to me, in rejection. Know, had to be the first call. [00:02:14] S0: We love you for that. We take that seriously. Okay, in plain English, let's just start with your background. Steve, who are you?
00:02:14 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:02:14] S0: We love you for that. We take that seriously. Okay, in plain English, let's just start with your background. Steve, who are you? [00:02:22] S1: Well, I'm a kid from small town Pennsylvania, like 2,500 person town, up Stewartstown, PA. Joined the Navy to pay for college and was electrical engineer. So I was, like, always a little nerdier growing up and always was into robotics. I mean, that's that's, like, kind of the core of where it is. I mean, that's why dbot was a robotics company first before we pivoted, and that's why ACS is a robotics company. It's a common thread. And in the Navy, I worked on nuclear reactors. So those were kind of like big robots. [00:02:53] S0: How'd you meet your two cofounders? [00:02:55] S1: So Luke, Allen, I met in the Navy the first day of the Navy. And actually, it's a really funny story where... I I remember the story. My old boss in the Navy told me this, but I talked to him for, like, nine minutes at his cubicle. Sort of like in a cubicle farm. It's nuclear engineering, so I was very serious. And I, like, nine minutes into the convo, I started running around the office screaming, I'm gonna get rich off this guy. I recognized... And maybe I'm the original VC. I recognize I recognize that 21 years old... This sounds like a 21 year old me, by [00:03:26] S0: the way. It's... I better make... I'm tracking this perfectly.
00:03:26 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:03:26] S0: the way. It's... I better make... I'm tracking this perfectly. [00:03:28] S1: And I I like... I saw him and I just... I was like, I know this guy's a genius. And I knew he was a better electrical engineer than me, and I'm a very competitive person. So I was like... I told him when I was younger, was like, whatever you make, I'll sell, bro. I'm gonna stop being an electrical engineer after I met him. Because he's just like 10 x better than me at it. Yeah. And then my other cofounder, Mike, we met in restaurant tech. So, like, he was the CEO of Omnivore, is a restaurant middleware that Beavot integrated with. And we always just liked working with his company. And when he sold his company to Olo, that when we sold to DoorDash, we had the opportunity to bring him on for ACS. And so that's why the three of us are together here. [00:04:02] S0: It is very smart when you know and and recognize exceptional talent. Let's talk a little bit about ACS. What are you guys building in plain English?
00:04:02 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni, Charlotte Ross
[00:04:02] S0: It is very smart when you know and and recognize exceptional talent. Let's talk a little bit about ACS. What are you guys building in plain English? [00:04:12] S1: Yeah. So we are trying to become the air defense prime. So, like, the one stop shop for all things air defense. So, like, one of our taglines is if it flies, it dies, which we take seriously. Like, if it's in the air, we're shooting it down one way or another. So our flagship product, Bullfrog, is an autonomous... What's called an autonomous weapon station. That's what the military would call it. Basically, it's a robotic gun that can auto target and shoot drones, and and also brown targets as well, which is important for the military's mission set. So that's our first product, but the the vision where we're taking it is all things air defense, targeting the small drones up to the bigger drones. [00:04:50] S0: And then, I was gonna say, going back [00:04:51] S2: to Veeva for a minute, like, you know, obviously, you had a successful exit there. You didn't raise a ton capital efficient business. You got a nice acquisition from DoorDash. Going from restaurant tech to this, walk us through that thought process. [00:05:06] S0: That even seemed like a leap for you.
00:05:06 · Alexa von Tobel, Steven Simoni
[00:05:06] S0: That even seemed like a leap for you. [00:05:07] S1: Not a leap as an electrical engineer. Like, robotics is the same, you know, regardless of the industry, you know, different use cases, but still the same principles of electrical engineering apply across industry. You know, we started in the military, Luke and I. So we had a good kind of landscape of what products and what are being built for the military. So we kind of entered the market, like, with some history. And we saw an opportunity in... Particularly in weapon stations, which hadn't been upgraded since Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Those Those are the last time those were upgraded. So obviously with the Venture hat on, think opportunity to upgrade that before other companies start doing it is really where we entered the market at. [00:05:48] S0: I want to just quickly step back and really describe the Bullfrog to And keep in mind, I also want to describe, like, how is a war fought these days? And obviously, none of us want war to happen. But if war does happen, you want to protect as many lives as humanly possible. And the bullfrog does that, which I think is a really important part of your mission. But let's just talk a little bit. What is the Bullfrog? And just kind of give everyone a visual.