Building a company is akin to developing a championship sports team, the way Ben Lamm sees it.
“Not enough people think of entrepreneurship or startups as team sports, but they are,” Lamm said. “It is my job as the founder to build that team and to know when new talent is needed to take on the next big challenge.”
Which is why roughly three years after co-founding Hypergiant Industries LLC, Lamm is stepping down as CEO.
The company announced May 18 that, effective immediately, Mike Betzer is president and chief executive of the artificial intelligence company. He also joined the board of directors.
Co-founded by Lamm in 2018, Hypergiant’s largest office is in Austin. It also has offices in Dallas and Houston, and Seattle and Washington, D.C. The uses of its AI tech span a diverse range of sectors such as critical infrastructure, defense, space, health care, retail and food and beverage. Hypergiant has bought at least three companies: app developer Black Pixel, satellite-launch company SEOPS LLC and an undisclosed satellite-imaging company. Hypergiant boasts a stable of about 30 customers, including Sumitomo Corp., Boeing, Schlumberger, Booz Allen Hamilton and the Department of Defense.
Betzer comes to Hypergiant from Austin-based customer engagement software company Khoros LLC. He spent roughly two-and-a-half years there, attaining the title of chief digital transformation officer. Khoros was formed in 2018 in the merger of Austin-based Spredfast and San Francisco-based Lithium with the backing of Vista Equity Partners, the high-profile Austin-based buyout firm. Betzer also worked at Lithium for about four years, achieving the position of senior vice president and general manager.
Lamm said his job at Hypergiant has been “to create a company that would have a lasting impact on the world and in doing so increase shareholder value. I believe in this incredible team that I have assembled, now led by Mike Betzer, is poised to not only grow my mission, but accelerate it.”
Lamm and Betzer have known each other for a decade. Lamm praised Betzer’s “wealth of experience, connections and ideas” — the stuff that will serve as the foundation for Hypergiant’s continued growth, he said. Betzer “is one of the top [software-as-a-service] executives, not only in Austin, but in the U.S.”
“I’m so honored to be joining this team,” Betzer said in a statement. “Hypergiant’s Applied AI solutions and platform are on a path that will continue to show huge growth in the years ahead. I couldn’t be more humbled to be entrusted with driving the Hypergiant vision and mission forward.”
The new CEO’s “first focus will make sure that [our enterprise AI platform Hyperdrive] rollout to our customers and partners goes smoothly and we scale it across various industry sectors.” Hyperdrive will “help improve the pace at which devOps teams can build and scale AI models,” according to the announcement. The product already has 30 customers, Lamm said.
Lamm now is board vice chairman and said he is focusing more on major global challenges.
“I have been thinking more so about the challenges in the world I want to take on,” he said. “I will be overseeing all of Hypergiant's AI for good initiatives. Our world is in crisis; we cannot stand idly by. As such, I will spend my time focused on leveraging the various models and technologies for the greater good.”
The company currently employs 180 and continues to work remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “The vast majority” of Hyperdrive employees are based in Austin, Lamm said. “Austin is definitely our biggest presence and half of the leadership is in Austin while the rest is distributed. Mike is based in Austin and will be running the company out of Austin."
Chairman and Global Chief Technology Officer Mohammed Farooq, hired in September, also is based in Austin. The company also made recent executive hires, such as David Young as chief revenue officer and Prasad Bandreddi as vice president of engineering.
Lamm said the company does not comment on its projects, research and development and fundraising “until it is done. We are growing and always looking to continue to bring in the right financial partners.”
Hypergiant is re-evaluating its Austin offices spaces, “but not everywhere,” Lamm said. “We do not need [more than 10,000 square feet] in every city like we did before the pandemic. We are moving to a hybrid hub model where we have collaboration and meeting spaces, but the office hours will be flexible, always open, and the desks are fluid.”
The company is “doing mid-eight figures in revenue,” he said.
Companies others compare Hypergiant to include California-headquartered C3.ai Inc. (NYSE:AI) and Denver-headquartered Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE: PLTR), Lamm said.
“We are focused on different market sectors with some overlap,” he said. “A primary difference is that our platform is open unlike our competitors. However, there is not currently an AI services integration platform in the market and this makes us without competition in that regard.”
