A Golden-based tech company offering simulation training for enterprises recently secured fresh capital.
The Regis Co. raised a $3.5 million seed round to pivot from a service provider working solely with enterprises to a SaaS company offering its solution to all types of organizations.
"We needed more than just the money," said Mike Vaughan, CEO and co-founder of The Regis Co. "We needed the relationships. We needed the coaching and guidance because we switched to become a SaaS-based business."
Founded in 2003, The Regis Co. currently works with enterprises, such as Deloitte and MasterCard, to create customized learning simulations for employees.
Different from the e-learning space, Vaughan said simulation-based learning takes users through in-depth storylines where they decide what to do in each circumstance. The simulation and storyline changes based on their selection.
In mid-2020, The Regis Co. began to pivot with the end goal of making its simulations available to anyone, something the seed round will help accelerate. Vaughan said he even wants high school students to have access to these simulations to learn how to be a leader or excel at project management tasks.
The Regis Co. plans to begin working with companies that have large e-learning videos and intellectual property in Q1 2024. By the end of 2024, Vaughan said he plans to offer the company's simulation services to creators.
"The creator is any individual. [They] will be able to create a simulation and resell it in the marketplace," Vaughan said. "So that basically means we've achieved getting the price point low enough where we can have people build for K-12."
Making headway toward its goal, The Regis Co. began using artificial intelligence to more easily and quickly build simulations. AI also helps reduce the cost of creating simulations, thus opening the market to smaller companies.
A simulation that used to take five months to build, can now be built in five weeks. Writing a simulation can now be done in two hours, as compared to two weeks, Vaughan said.
"The cost savings are so significant now," he said. "And this isn't conceptual. We're doing that today. Our AI is mature enough [that] we're already realizing the cost benefits of using it."
The Regis Co. launched its first AI-powered SaaS product in January. The product, called SimGate, allows companies to develop simulations with simple prompts offered by The Regis Co. SimGate lets companies implement and manage their simulations, too.
The Regis Co. also released Rex AI in mid-September. Vaughan described this tool as "pure AI technology that writes all the content for the simulation activities." Rex AI was built by The Regis Co. and uses ChatGPT-4's large language model. It allows users to also have a private database.
The $3.5 million seed round was led by Access Venture Partners with participation from FirstMile Ventures, Firebrand Ventures and Management Concepts.
Vaughan said the relationships with these investors and the funding itself will allow The Regis Co. to build out its team. The 26-person company recently hired three salespeople and is on the lookout for another sales representative and a marketing coordinator.
The seed round will also bring the company one step closer to building its simulation marketplace. Vaughan said The Regis Co. will need to raise another round of capital to build out the marketplace.
"If we stay on the course that we are on ... we'll be probably the first company out there offering the first simulation marketplace," he said. "That's why we need that capital to get us there as fast as we can."
The Regis Co. plans to go after its next round of funding in Q2 2024.
