S4,E10 - Sara Nozkova

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This is Talk CNY, a semi-monthly podcast by CenterState CEO. We're an independent nonprofit committed to creating inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth in Central New York. Join us as we meet the people and explore the projects driving the regional economy forward. This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, Director of Communications at CenterState CEO and your host for Talk CNY. Communicating with animals is not just storybook, but a reality for the GENIUS New York Round Nine grand prize winner. Flox Intelligence is a wildlife AI company that aims to minimize harmful interactions between humans and animals. The idea recently won them a $1 million grand prize at the GENIUS Pitch Night Finals at Innovation Night this year. On this episode of Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, we're joined by Flox Intelligence's co-founder, Sara Nozkova. Well, Sara, thank you so much for joining us here today.

Congratulations on your win.

Thank you for having me.

So now that kind of all the buildup towards the pitch competition is done, I mean, how are you feeling? How are you moving forward?

It feels surreal. It was amazing. We've been working so hard for many months now towards that night and just to have the recognition from everyone in the audience and all the people that have kind of seen us as a company to grow here in Syracuse, that was special.

Yeah. And you are the first female founder to win the GENIUS New York grand prize. What does that mean to you? How are you kind of approaching that moment?

Yeah, it was about time, wasn't it? Yeah,

Absolutely.

I mean, it's such an honor and it's amazing for me to be kind of the first one and hopefully more female founders will actually get the courage to apply and even build in the space because it's ... the autonomous systems industry is still very male dominated and there's a lot of programs and so on trying to include more and more female founders, but there's still a lot to be done. So I'm glad that hopefully I can be a part of inspiring others.

Yeah, definitely. And I mean, we haven't talked about it yet in the episode, but we should talk about it. Flox Intelligence. What is it that Flox Intelligence does? What problem are you trying to solve?

So Flox Intelligence is a wildlife intelligence company, and we are in a nutshell, I would say, building systems that can decode animal communication and then speak to animals in their own language, telling them to stay away from critical infrastructure. So instead of fences or pyrotechnics or different things that don't work and animals habituate to them, we have completely different approach where we have our AI engineers working side by side, our wildlife biologists and together we are creating playlists that actually work on specific species and specific animals. So yeah, today we are deployed at airports, by highways, by train tracks. We have different cities and governments as customers as well. So everywhere where you have human wildlife conflicts, that is where we help.

I mean, it's really amazing. And you talked a little bit in your pitch at Innovation Night about even the possibility, and I think this interested a lot of people, you kind of see the faces perk up in the crowd of having a smaller version in personal gardens. So it's really everything from keeping wildlife out of the way of infrastructure to personal interactions with wildlife.

Yeah? Yeah. And I mean, the way I think about it and why I founded the company in the first place is that we and our human infrastructure is just expanding and taking more and more space and then both drains and also aircraft are getting faster and more quiet. So it's just a lot of bad trends happening. And so we really need new tools that can help us create new boundaries and coexist in a better way. And today we work a lot with the high risk critical infrastructure, but we get so many inbounds from people having deer eating their trees in the garden or scales. So we are already thinking about next version of our product that will be more for consumers, but more to come.

More to come. Yeah. Exciting. I want to go back to the beginning of your GENIUS New York journey a bit. You and Flox Intelligence are both from Stockholm, Sweden. Now you are here in Syracuse, New York, in the U.S. Can you talk me through a little bit about applying for GENIUS, how you found out and your first early days here in Syracuse?

Yeah. So I learned about the program. I think it was online through the newsletter and then I actually applied three times without getting in. So it's good to be persistent.

Perseverance is good.

Yes.

And yeah, now we got in on the fourth try, and we won. Nice.

So we were missing out before.

Yeah. I mean, I had spent a lot of time on planes between Europe and the U.S. for about two years prior to joining the program. So I felt like we got this pool from the market here in North America, but we still were building from Stockholm, and I felt that we really need to be close to our customers, and I need to have our commercial team here. I think joining the program really was the last push that we needed to actually take my bags and take my family and really-

And you're a very adorable dog.

Yes. Our happiness manager is here as well.

So what's it been like being ... What was it like to arrive in Syracuse? What were kind of your expectations and how did you get to know the community?

Yeah, so we relocated in September, and it's been a great journey. I mean, I've never worked so much in my life, but it's been so enjoyable. There are so many great founders here. The advisors have been amazing and their connections and all the network that we got access to. I really appreciate it a lot. I don't know even where we would be if we didn't get accepted to the program. So it's very hard for me to see where we would be.

Yeah. So I mean, can you talk a little bit more about what kind of growth your company has gone through during your time in Genius New York? What are some of the big milestones you've hit while you're here?

Yeah. So I founded a company out of AI Research Lab in Stockholm in December 2020. So it's been a couple of years, but it's been a lot of validation. So field studies, working with different wildlife biologies and really making sure that our idea is not only hypotheses, but we are de- risking it and we know that it works. And now since we joined the program, we had a couple of early adapters in the U.S., but we didn't have really recurring customers. We also had our first prototypes out there, but we didn't have a certified product. And so during the last couple of months, when we were in the program, we really went from prototypes to going into large-scale production. We have signed so many new customers. We have airports like Denver International Airport or Grand Rapids International Airport. We work with so many departments of transportation or Parks Canada or USDA and all of those we have signed just now in a couple of months.

And yeah, right now I think about 80% of our customers are in North America, which is amazing.

Yeah. Wow. So that trip across the ocean, it was worth it.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

What are some of your plans for the immediate future? What are you guys kind of looking at, even just through the rest of the GENIUS program, which is a year-long accelerator?

Yeah. So we are building our commercial team from here. We have a couple of spots left for our sales manager roles, marketing manager roles, and we are really about just delivering more of our products to our customers. So we are shipping almost every week now, and yeah, it's a lot, but it's such a great ride.

Well, we will have more with Sara coming up in just a moment here, but, first, a quick word from our presenting sponsor, NBT Bank.

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This is Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank. I'm Katie Zilcosky, the Director of Communications at CenterState CEO and your host for Talk CNY. I'm joined today by Sara Nozkova, the co-founder of Flox Intelligence and the $1 million grand prize winner of GENIUS New York round nine. Welcome and thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Congrats again on your win. We are so excited to welcome you into the GENIUS New York community, especially as our grand prize winner. So tell me a little bit more about the specifics of the support that GENIUS and CenterState CEO has offered you throughout your process so far. What has been especially meaningful to you, and what's been especially helpful?

Yeah. So we've been working a lot with the different advisors that we've been assigned. So it's really people that have done great things, achieved great things and want to kind of give back to the community and first-time or second-time founders such as us. So we've been working with them on, for example, setting up production or business development or hiring. So it's been such a great extension of our team in a way, and they also open so many doors to our customers and our channel partners. So that has been so, so helpful.

You are a part of GENIUS Cohort Nine, which is our very first cohort to be based out of the INSPYRE Innovation Hub. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like being in the building and being a part of the INSPYRE community?

Yeah, it's an amazing building, but for us it's also so much more. So it's really a space where there are so many different founders and I can just go across the hall and brainstorm about kind of the latest challenges I have. And it's amazing just to have the network and be able to kind of share our journey with other founders in the cohort, but also other founders who are not part of the GENIUS New York program but are part of the INSPYRE Innovation Hub. So that has been amazing.

I know the cohort is intentionally collaborative. I know our program managers make sure that they kind of try to get teams together who aren't in direct competition but may be able to compliment or even just support each other. Have you found that to be the case with cohort nine, and how have you done so?

Yeah, so we don't have any formalized partnerships yet, but we are looking at I think two of the companies where we see there's a lot of opportunity to collaborate and bring additional value to the end customers, especially at airports. So yeah, more to come.

That sounds really exciting. So coming up at the end of the month, we are going to close our application period for GENIUS Cohort 10, which is really exciting, but I'm sure there are a lot of people who are probably in the final stages of should I apply or looking to know like, what should I expect when I apply? Or maybe even just a startup in the uncrewed system space that is trying to figure out their technology or business. What would you say to them? What would your advice be?

Yeah, I would say just do it, right? Don't hesitate to apply. Even if you don't get in, maybe you will get great feedback on where to go next. And one other thing is, I think it's very important to ask yourself as a founder, where are you now and what do you need the most? So for us the first couple of times where we applied but we didn't get in, now when I'm looking back at it, I'm so grateful for that because now we actually were able to execute on everything. So going just from prototypes to scale, being able to take on great introductions and engage with the customers and channel partners and if you are maybe at the very first stage where you have a prototypes but it's not really working and you can't really go to scale with customers, I think it's a bit harder.

So really think about when is the best timing for you and your company to make sense to really scale.

Now, Syracuse, Central New York, we are going through a period of great growth right now and especially in the uncrewed systems space. It's one of our really great growing industries. Can you talk a little bit about what you hope to see from the Syracuse and Central New York uncrewed system space as you continue to build out your headquarters here?

Yeah. I hope we can see more and more founders with great bold ideas and I would like to see more hardware companies. I think like the physical AI and the hardware space is kind of having its moments finally. So I would like to see more of that and also more collaborations between us.

So I'm sure you're thinking well into the future for what's next for Flox Intelligence, but can you share with us a little bit about what you're thinking about, what you're mapping out and what customers you're looking at for the near future?

Yeah. So we are especially targeting airports here in the U.S., but also really different critical infrastructure owners. So I think everyone who either operates a critical infrastructure or knows anyone who does and who faces human wildlife conflicts, it can be everything from squirrels to mountain lions to grizzly bears. We've worked with all of them. So we would like to help and I really am looking forward to making more of an impact at scale, finally.

And for anyone interested in Flox Intelligence and all it has to offer, where can they go?

Yeah. So you can go to floxintelligence.com and shoot me an email.

All right. Well, Sara, thank you so much for being here today. We really enjoyed having you on.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

CenterState CEO's podcast Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank, is available on all major podcast platforms or centerstateceo.com. Additional content and clips can be seen across CenterState CEO's social media channels. For new episode reminders, be sure to subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app and don't forget to leave a quick review or a five-star rating. Thanks for listening to Talk CNY, presented by NBT Bank.