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V O L . X X I X N O. V M A R C H 6 , 2 0 2 3 24 E M E R G I N G I N D U S T R I E S F O C U S launching Windows Phone 7," says Sullivan. "It was the early days of the consumerization of information tech- nology and the shift from the web to native mobile applications. I pitched an idea for an app called Go to Qi Lu, who was the head of Bing at the time and he liked it so much that Microsoft gave me support to work on it outside of my core role." When he left Microsoft and moved back to Maine, he joined Liquid Wireless as one of the first employees post-acquisition by Publishers Clearing House as an Android engineer as part of a small team building a mobile application around their famous sweepstakes called PCH Sweeps. "It felt like working in a startup within a startup and allowed me to learn quite a bit about casual gam- ing and advertising. is experience cemented my roots here in Maine and my interest in being involved in start- ups ever since," Sullivan says. Jumping into the virtual world Sullivan started AMRO Systems, which was later renamed Standard Magic in 2019. He set out to fill the void between virtual reality's people and process side. He created augmented reality technol- ogy which is an interactive experience that combines the real world and com- puter-generated content. He intended to work with local Maine businesses to identify opportunities to co-develop new augmented and virtual reality products. When the pandemic hit, all of the opportunities went away and led to his decision to participate in the inaugural cohort of the New England I-Corps at Maine Institute of Technology. MTI provided cohort participants with the training, interview tools and network to go out into this world to understand how businesses were training, how to market goods and services, and where this technology could provide real value. "Alakazam employs more than a dozen Mainers and has the potential to continue to grow and be a marvelous success story for our state," says Brian Whitney, MTI's president. e outcome was a prototype for a virtual reality meeting application for business-to-business sales. e company had the opportunity to test with learn- ing and development professionals at IDEXX Laboratories. "When we showed Dr. Richard Corey at UMaine, he asked if we had thought about having a version that could run in the web browser as well as virtual reality," said Sullivan. "UMaine VEMI Lab had been look- ing at several open source projects around WebXR (web-based extended reality), which means a website that is 3D, social with avatars, 3D world environments where people con- nect in a social way. One of the big challenges we saw with WebXR was the need for providers with Cloud Computing expertise who could help organizations with setting up these kinds of websites." "is kicked off our exploration at Standard Magic of these new tools, which we then later saw the opportu- nity to build a platform around after providing as a service for customers all around the world." at led to the creation of Alakazam, which was formed in October 2022. Alakazam is a primarily remote company, with the majority of the employees living in the greater Portland area. ey utilize a floating desk service at CloudPort cowork- ing space in Portland for in-person collaboration. e company has raised investment from local inves- tors, including Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and local angel investors. At its core, the company is a software service for 3D website building and hosting, and our platform allows users to use pre-built virtual world templates and easy-to-use drag-and-drop tools. "Today, we see the most pain local- ized in marketing, retail, and education verticals for immersive web technology," says Sullivan. "Businesses have been using products like Zoom for virtual » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E S C R E E N S H O T / C O U R T E S Y O F A L A K A Z A M The Portland startup Alakazam has developed technology that creates virtual worlds, avatars, spatial audio and event environments.

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