Ryan Campbell and Jonathan Taylor competed against each other more than 30 years ago as members of opposing high school computer programming teams, but they’ve since worked together on and off to build multiple companies.
That included Orlando-based Voxeo Corp., a software firm Campbell and Taylor founded in 1999 and sold for nearly $150 million in 2013. They're back together as the top executives of a company, as Taylor became CEO of Winter Park-based tech company Sighthound Inc. this summer, while Campbell became president around the same time.
With this new, experienced leadership team, Sighthound aims to find more customers, close more deals and this year turn a profit for the first time.
Sighthound offers artificial intelligence-based solutions that can identify vehicles, read license plates and remove personal information — such as faces — from videos. These computer vision products are possible because Sighthound trains computers by feeding millions of images, some annotated by humans, to algorithms that operates similar to a human brain, rewarding a computer when it correctly guesses what an image is.
Taylor co-founded Sighthound in 2013, and Campbell was an early investor (Campbell also joined the company's board of directors four years ago). The previous CEO was ready to call it quits, so Taylor — Sighthound's chairman — took on the CEO role and brought Campbell on as president, Taylor told Orlando Inno. "Startups are incredibly hard... [Campbell and I] learned how to manage and maneuver stress better than when we were in our 20s and 30s."
Now, Sighthound's focus is on improved execution. The technology behind Sighthound is important, but the differentiator in the market will be offering a product customers can use, Campbell said. "There’s an arms race on the tech side, but one area we have a lead on is product experience and bringing the cutting-edge tech to market."
The 25-person company last year beefed up its tech with the purchase of Colorado-based smart camera and edge computing firm Boulder AI. Now, Sighthound has access to a computer smaller than a Coca-Cola can that's able to run software and do analysis inside the camera, Taylor said. "The camera can be on a light pole in Denver covered in snow or rained on in Florida, and it'll still work."
Sighthound has raised $7 million from investors since it was founded, but Taylor said the goal is to have the first profitable year in 2022. However, Taylor doesn't expect that profit to be a lot. "I don't like to be that profitable. If you’re not investing in what’s next, you’re dead already. If we can make $1 profit, that’s perfect."
Meanwhile, Campbell and Taylor are involved in the Central Florida tech ecosystem as investors, mentors and co-founders. For example, Taylor is a co-founder, investor and chairman at Winter Park-based photographer workflow startup PhotoDay.
PhotoDay co-founder Rainer Flor met Taylor when he was trying to raise capital at a different company that preceded PhotoDay, Flor told Orlando Inno. "We met with the guy for three hours. He loved us, and told us he hated our idea. That turned into a great idea."
The growth of startup is important for Central Florida, as those firms can add local jobs and create economic impact as they scale. Startups also create innovative solutions for businesses, help develop a community and make it easier for other new companies to form in the future.
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