Doctoral student in mechanical engineering wins $50,000 at Alabama Launchpad pitch competition

Will Bryan, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, won first place and $50,000 at Alabama Launchpad's early-seed stage Cycle 3 pitch competition final round Thursday, Dec. 7, in Birmingham.

Bryan is the CEO and founder of Autonoma, which creates autonomous vehicle and simulation validation tools. The startup combines an autonomous vehicle simulator with high-bandwidth, low-latency wireless communications to allow a real vehicle to “see” a virtual environment around it – allowing for safer transitions from simulation to on-road operation and is less expensive/more efficient than current validation methods.

“Participating in Launchpad was a great experience. As a first-time founder there are a lot of unknowns, so it is crucial to learn from the experiences of others while still being true to myself,” said Bryan, who competed in Alabama Launchpad’s Cycle 2 final round Aug. 17 at Auburn University’s New Venture Accelerator.

“Launchpad provides great mentors and a startup ecosystem that have been an excellent resource as we build a great product and bring it to market,” he said. “We are also beginning to raise a seed investment round, so using the Launchpad advisors to strategize our fundraising and provide introductions has been huge. Winning first place and taking home $50,000 is the whipped cream on top of an already extremely valuable experience. It provides valuable capital as we are growing and gets our name in front of more people.”

Bryan’s interest in the automated vehicle world blossomed in Auburn Engineering’s GAVLAB (GPS and Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory) during his pursuit of a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He also served as the Autonomous Tiger Racing team lead.

“At Autonoma, have been working hard to make scalable simulation tools that close the gap between simulation and reality,” Bryan said. “As we move forward, we are expanding to bring our simulation to new automated industries such as defense, warehouse robotics, drone delivery, logging, mining, trucking and more. Additionally, we are working to blend the lines between software simulation and real-world operation with our augmented reality solution that allows us to test the most dangerous and rare edge cases on real vehicles for the first time. We are currently fundraising to help us achieve these goals and continue our mission of increasing the safety of autonomous systems.”

Zakariya Veasy, a senior in computer science and software engineering, was among four entrepreneurs to present in the competition's concept stage division. His business idea, OMNIS, merges blockchain technology with traditional banking to empower users with peer-to-peer loans, credit building and seamless transactions. The concept stage division, however, was ultimately won by DevClarity, an artificial intelligence-powered platform for proactive developer management.

Since its inception in 2006, Alabama Launchpad has funded 117 Alabama startups and awarded more than $6 million in non-dilutive funding to winning companies, which boasts a combined post-money valuation of more than $1 billion and employ more than 1,300 people.