The Ultimarii Story: Josh Malate takes 60 Second Founder
We sat down with Josh Malate, co-founder of Ultimarii, a company building AI infrastructure that will help speed up the development of major infrastructure.
In Episode 5 of the 60 Second Founder, we sat down with Josh Malate, co-founder of Ultimarii, a company building AI infrastructure that will help speed up the development of major infrastructure.
The Opportunity: Large Projects are at a Standstill
When it comes to critical infrastructure that powers our lives: think power plants, pipelines, and other energy systems, the biggest roadblock is often process.
Currently, regulatory and permitting processes are described by Josh as ‘death by 1000 cuts’. The requirement of thousands of pages to submit, hundreds of questions needing answers, and mountains of research required had predictable outcomes: rising costs, increased time, and projects that could be boosting the economy stuck in neutral awaiting paperwork.
This process, or lack thereof, was the catalyst for Ultimarii’s creation.
“The challenges of developing major projects is an acute problem we have experienced in Canada for years”
The Founder Journey
From his previous venture at Athennian to his current position at Ultimarii, Josh is no stranger to founding and building companies.
One of the biggest takeaways from these journeys related to the idea of what exactly a company is solving, and ensuring that the company mission makes sense from an ROI standpoint.
As Ultimarii continues its growth, having just raised $5 million and with the Canadian government continuing to show commitment to creating new infrastructure, the initial problem set focus set the wheels in motion, and will continue to be a critical piece of Ultimarii’s mission.
“Pick a problem set where big dollars are being spent; this lets the numerator drive the ROI calculation.”
The Solution: Ultimarii’s Mission
“Ultimarii has pre-built AI agents that complete the individual processes guided by the professionals that do this work. Our AI tools speed up every part of the development process.”
Ultimarii’s mission is straightforward: speed up the development of major infrastructure projects. Using pre-built AI agents, the platform automates and accelerates the most time-intensive parts of compliance and permitting.
The ability to speed these processes up comes down to one thing: data. By curating and maintaining specific data sets of regulatory information that forms the context for solutions. With that in place, Ultimarii focuses their AI on specific data with very specific instructions, allowing for increased speed while ensuring accuracy does not suffer as a result.
Make sure to sign up to Circuit Stream’s “Intro to AI Development Workshop” in Calgary on Saturday, October 18th! We’ll see you there!
Ultimarii: Born Out Of Lived Experiences
Ultimarii was created as a result of an issue that both Malate and his co-founder, Doug Schweitzer, were independently passionate about: Canada’s ability to create infrastructure being limited by outdated and slow processes.
When the duo began discovery conversations with industry leaders, the positive reception and encouragement made clear that this was a problem set worth solving. Once the problem at hand was solidified, Ultimarii created a team of first principles problem solvers, allowing the company to move more dynamically in the rapidly changing AI Tech landscape.
“Doug and I have been independently passionate about this problem statement for a long time and were energized by our joint passion to solve it.”
Growing Locally: Calgary and Canada’s Benefits
Ultimarii’s success would not be possible without an environment that fosters growth, which is why Malate was especially clear about the benefit of growing in Calgary, as well as Canada on a more macro level.
Growing a competitive vertical AI company requires the leveraging of industry expertise into the product being built. Malate described both Calgary and Canada as having world class talent and companies in major project development, construction, and operation, making the city an ideal place to nurture Ultimarii’s growth.
This has also allowed for a clearer picture for Ultimarii’s future: scaling impact across the Canadian market in energy, power generation, utilities and mining, in addition to aiding Canada’s political will to build infrastructure that will be crucial to powering the country’s economy for the coming decades.
“This is the perfect location to productize this expertise through our team members, investors, customers and advisors.
Ultimarii will serve our part in responsible acceleration of getting this infrastructure built.”
Thank you for reading Episode 5 of Tech Thursday’s ‘60 Second Founder’. If you know of a founder in Calgary that’s building in tech, make sure to reach out to Tech Thursday on our Instagram!