After Ryan Luther left the Air Force, he began looking at jobs at tech giants like Google and Amazon. But when he wanted to do something more cutting edge, he turned to launching his own startup out of Lakeland.
He and his co-founder, also an Air Force veteran, launched Wind Talker Innovations in 2016 after realizing the network communication issues they experienced went far beyond the aviation sector. They offer software called Osmosis that, if both devices have it, can directly communicate with one another and bypass cell towers.
“In the Air Force, you had this silo of information, and when I started looking commercially, the automotive industry is 30 years out of date,” Luther said. “You have these cars running around with 12 or more sensors and are not communicating with other vehicles to share that safety.”
Wind Talker has completed some pilot projects but plans to fully launch this quarter and generate revenue. Luther said it has already raised $34 million.
“To build a network, it’s a lot of technology, and it’s a lot of research and development that goes into building that network,” Luther said. “And it’s very difficult, as a startup, to talk to bigger tech companies because the standard right now is you start them to sell them. When that’s not your goal, it’s tough because you want these companies to get buy-in but don’t want them to steal your idea. So we’ve been very careful.”
The company has 14 patents approved for its technology, which can apply to multiple verticals, including education technology, autonomous vehicles and government sectors. They are currently working with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office to replace its entire fleet of drones.
“I realized in my research these communication problems weren’t just government problems — in some cases, much worse on the consumer side,” Luther said. “That got us discussing, ‘Hey, there seems like a real need.’”
It has 85 employees spread throughout the country, with roughly 40 in Lakeland. It has offices in Alaska and Washington as well. Luther said he plans to seek a roughly $150M Series C in Q3 of this year.
“We want to make sure this technology benefits the world and don’t want to risk selling it off,” Luther said. “There could be components of it [sold] because there is so much to it. But our goal isn’t to sell the company and sell the tech — our goal is to make sure it gets implemented.”
