From left to right: Hypergiant’s Greg Carley, Ben Lamm, Dan Haab, Sarah Grant, and Shawn Ullman , photo courtesy of Hypergiant
Hypergiant Industries has big goals like creating smart cities, flying cars, and finding a cure for cancer, Bill Nye, one of the world’s most famous mechanical engineers, known as The Science Guy., says in a video created for Hypergiant.
“We’re not aiming for utopia, but simply a better universe,” Nye says in the video.
“This is not too distant world to which we are travelling and all of humanity will arrive and Hypergiant will be the ones to take you there today,” Nye says. “Because Hypergiant is not waiting for tomorrow to get you to tomorrow.”
And Nye is onboard with Hypergiant for the ride. The startup, which launched in February of 2018, announced this week it has added Nye to its executive advisory board among other distinguished individuals.
Hypergiant, with 175 employees in Austin, Dallas, Houston and Seattle, bills itself as “the AI Industrial complex for leading global enterprises and governments.” The company’s space division, Hypergiant Galactic Systems, focuses on AI-driven software and hardware for the space industry.
Earlier this month, Hypergiant Industries announced it had secured funding from Sumitomo Corporate of Americas and Perot Jain, Additional investors include Align Capital, Tom Meredith, former CFO of Dell, and Austin Mayor Steve Adler. The company has not disclosed how much funding it has raised to date.
Hypergiant also reported it is on pace to be one of the fastest technology companies to reach $100 million in revenue.
“Hypergiant has an ambitious mission – to address some big problems using artificial intelligence systems. I’m looking forward to working with Hypergiant to develop artificially intelligent systems in two areas I care about a great deal – climate change and space exploration. We need to think big, and I’m very optimistic about what AI can do to make the world quite a bit better,” Bill Nye, CEO of Planetary Society, engineer, science advocate, and Hypergiant Executive Advisory Board member.
Hypergiant’s board is “the next critical step in the growth of the rapidly scaling company.” Its new advisory board members have experience in astronautics, climate change, artificial intelligence, ethics in AI, and aerospace.
“We know it’s critical to have the leading thinkers of our time join with us as we continue this amazing journey. This board is a collection of people who are changing the way we think about various enterprise sectors but also the planet, technology, space and what’s best for the entire human race,” Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Hypergiant, said in a news release.
Other new board members include General Lance Lord, USAF (retired), Sangeeta Mudnal, senior director for FATE (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics), John McKinley, entrepreneur and business executive who has held CTO positions at News Corp., GE Capital and AOL, Andrew Essex, advertising business executive who served as CEO of Tribeca Enterprises, Nova Spivach, a successful venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, Lisa Harris, founder of Align Capital, Andrew Allen, a three-time space flight veteran and former Space Shuttle Commander, and CEO of Aerodyne Industries, Lloyd Walker, president of Precurve, James D. Royston, President and CEO of L2 Aerospace, Tom Meredith, senior partner in Brightstar Capital Partners, Andy Hickl, an innovator in artificial intelligence, big data analytics and natural language processing.