ABOUT
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ABOUT
Ross Wesson CFA
Ross Wesson is the Principal at Stade Ventures, a “Venture Studio” that brings together rockstar engineers & entrepreneurs under one roof to bring truly remarkable technologies & startups to life. Previously, he served as the Co-Founder of DEFT Dynamics, which is where he created and honed the Venture Studio model. The startups launched out of DEFT’s Venture Studio were focused on: IoT (app-connected hardware/sensors); AI/Machine-Learning; Robotics; Carbon Fiber Materials; and Defense.
Wesson is an entrepreneur with a passion for building great businesses around revolutionary technologies. He partnered with long-time friend Dr. Austin Gurley to found DEFT in 2015. The pair bootstrapped the business with $10k of personal savings (the only capital that has gone in to DEFT since inception), and started work at DEFT full-time in 2017. During the past 2 years, the team’s number of full-time employees has grown from 2 (in 2017) to 15 (August 2019), and has funded & launched 4 wholly-owned startups (Brigand Arms LLC, APEX Pro LLC, Robotical.ly Inc., & MOXIE IoT LLC), in addition to launching/partnering in nearly a dozen additional tech startups.
Prior to co-founding DEFT, Wesson worked in the investment industry, most recently on Wall Street. He graduated from the University of Alabama, where he double majored in economics and finance and minored in philosophy. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder.
IN THE NEWS
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Executive Profile: Inside DEFT Dynamics Venture Studio
Executive Profile- Inside Ross Wesson’s venture studio – Birmingham Business JournalAs Birmingham’s pedigree in the entrepreneurial and startup world evolves, new and innovative ideas of how to fold that into the general economy are becoming ever more present. A striking example of that is Deft Dynamics and its venture studio — a concept that has been explored in other markets but is rare in Birmingham.
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Special edition of Entrepreneur Weekly: in Las Vegas for CES
Ross Wesson, Co-founder of Robotically, Inc., is next in the hot seat. Ross fills us in on why Birmingham, Alabama was the ideal location to launch this technology startup alongside Dr. Austin Gurley.
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Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center
DEFT Dynamics: Assault Ladders & the Open-Architecture Composite Structures Used to Improve Them (Whitepaper)
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From AR-15 add-ons to racecar AI, these Birmingham natives are building a business on inventions
Deft Dynamics’ business is hard to pin down. Their first products to market don’t seem to have anything to do with one another: a lightweight AR-15 handguard, and an artificial intelligence device used in racecars. The owners – Austin Gurley and Ross Wesson – have a long list of ideas they want to bring to market one day, again in totally different industries. One big patent-pending idea is for a cheaper, more efficient design for a way to harvest solar power. this technology startup alongside Dr. Austin Gurley.
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Birmingham’s APEX Pro wins $100,000 EDPA Alabama Launchpad startup competition
Alabama-based machine-learning tech startup APEX Pro is honored to be selected as the winner of EDPA’s Alabama Launchpad $100,000 startup competition, which took place during Birmingham’s annual Innovation Week.
“DEFT is excited to have been a part of building APEX Pro from day one,” stated Ross Wesson, founder of DEFT Venture Studio. “This win by APEX Pro reinforces Birmingham’s national reputation as an ideal city to found world-class startups.”
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Alabama presence at high-tech CES show includes inventions, recruiting push
CES 2020, the world’s largest consumer technology event, is getting under way today, and Alabama companies are on hand to show off their forward-thinking products and technologies. DEFT Dynamics Startup Studio will have a booth at CES that showcases several startups in the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and robotics fields that have sprung up in the company’s 5,000-square-foot Birmingham facility.
Ross Wesson, co-founder of DEFT Dynamics, said CES offers the studio’s startups an unrivaled platform to get their technologies in front of industry decision-makers and to get instant feedback. After last year’s event, DEFT’s robotics startup, Robotical.ly, shifted its focus from consumer applications to industrial operations in physically hazardous environments. It’s now teaming with Birmingham’s Southern Research to develop smart robots for next-generation nuclear reactors under a Department of Energy grant.
At CES 2020, Wesson expects DEFT startup Moxie, which focuses on end-to-end IoT systems, to make waves. He says the venture benefits from the co-location of hardware and software teams, and access to unlimited industrial shop space for manufacturing and rapid prototyping, giving Moxie competitive advantages.
“Alabama’s workforce dynamics and the state’s dedication to economic development makes cities like Birmingham suddenly highly attractive locations for today’s new wave of technology companies — where hardware and software must be developed, prototyped and even manufactured by teams working side by side under the same roof — something that could never be feasible in the ultra-expensive tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York City,” Wesson said. “At the end of the day, it’s just smart business. It’s why DEFT Dynamics and its member startups like Moxie are proud to state: ‘Built in Alabama. Trusted Globally,’” he said.
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DEFT Venture Studio continues to discover, expand
The Birmingham startup that generates startups isn’t slowing down – DEFT Venture Studio is collecting honors while at the same time preparing its next generation of products.
Now operating in downtown Birmingham, DEFT got a big boost last week when one of its companies, APEX Pro, took top honors in the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama’s Launchpad competition, earning $100,000 at the imerge celebration. The product also took the $1,000 People’s Choice Award following its pitch.
Ross Wesson, one of the partners behind DEFT, said winning was a big affirmation of the pitch and the product. “You never really know whether the audience and the judges can be on two different pages,” Wesson said of the pitch competition. “They were both in agreement this time.”
DEFT is a venture studio, a business that builds startups by bringing together engineers, entrepreneurs and venture capital under one roof. Wesson and his business partner Austin Gurley run DEFT with the idea of inventing products, spinning them off into separate companies, and then funneling profits back into new product and company creation.
Gurley and Wesson, both 27, grew up together until they left for college, Wesson to study finance at the University of Alabama, and Gurley to study engineering at Auburn University. After college, Gurley got his master’s and PhD, and Wesson worked on Wall Street. Gurley handles the engineering, while Wesson manages the business.
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Two Alabama startup companies win a combined $150K from Alabama Launchpad competition
Two startup companies from the Birmingham area have won $150,000 in prize money from Alabama Launchpad. MOXIE is taking home $100,000, which CEO Ross Wesson says will be used to recruit more talent with expertise that will help the company continue to grow.
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Alabama Launchpad funding fuels growth plans for tech startup MOXIE
The founders of MOXIE, which specializes in cutting-edge Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for industrial companies, say the Birmingham startup is preparing for growth after securing funding in an Alabama Launchpad competition. MOXIE earned a $100,000 seed-stage award in Launchpad’s recent 2020 Cycle 2 contest, sponsored by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (EDPA).
Co-founder and CEO Ross Wesson said MOXIE will use the Launchpad funding to recruit talent to fill roles critical to the startup’s growth plans. “A hundred years ago, Birmingham earned the nickname of being the ‘Magic City’ because of our dominance in the Industrial sector. Let’s do it again,” Wesson said.
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MOXIE, based in Birmingham, designs Bluetooth ventilator tech to increase healthcare safety
MOXIE is a team of expert engineers who design custom IoT solutions for their clients in a matter of weeks. Wondering what IoT means? IoT stands for “Internet of Things”—put simply, it is a network of interconnected objects that can absorb and exchange data. Each of MOXIE’s projects happens in-house—no middle-man involved.
“Crises like this show that we are all in it together as a society. While people may not always see eye-to-eye on a regular basis, things like this create amazing partnerships and help people work together for the common goal of humanity.“ – Ross Wesson, CEO, MOXIE