Masha Petrova of Nullspace: Delivering Advanced Engineering Software

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech and tacos, Tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper captains counting beans Contador Quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy and coffee my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos el gordo the tacos standing puesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean Watch the sunset la Jolla shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded When San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside to Tijuana Estee be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the moon SD Tecos with your host, Neil Bloom.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neil Bloom, and I'm thrilled to have you here. On the Tacos and Tech Podcast. We interview builders of technologies, of companies, of communities, and we do it weekly, so thanks for tuning in. Every Tuesday, a new interview and on Fridays we talk about what's new in the San Diego tech ecosystem from a news perspective. So make sure you join us there as well too. We also have a tech newsletter that comes out every other week@freshbroodtech.com you can subscribe to listen to it without further ado. Enjoy this episode and welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neal Bloom, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Masha Petrova, the CEO and co founder of nullspace. Hey, thanks for joining the podcast.

Hey Neil, how are you? It's a pleasure to be here.

It is a pleasure to have you here. We recently maybe reconnected at the San Diego Angel Conference because I think there's a chance we may have crossed paths at UCSD time wise. I bet we'll get down to the middle of that. And we have a shared connection through Professor Buckley, as I knew him when he taught one of my undergrad classes, which we'll get into. But you want to give us a quick overview of what null space is?

Sure. So, null space or null Space Inc. Is an engineering software company. We develop and commercialize software for electromagnetic simulation. And why would anybody want to do electromagnetic simulation? Well, companies in defense and aerospace, an automotive space, that are designing complex, sophisticated RF devices like antennas or radars. Those things are complicated to design, they're complicated to test, to make sure that they work properly. And EM simulation or electromagnetic simulation allows you to simulate that antenna design or the antenna RF signals, or the radar, or any other complicated RF device in a computer so that you could be sure that it's working properly before you actually build and test the thing. So that helps reduce number of prototypes, reduce engineering time to market, allows you to test a lot of ideas, a lot of different designs before committing to a particular design, which, as you can imagine, is important for complex technical type of devices.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, speaking of, really interested to kind of hear how that came to be because one does not just wake up one day and realize we need to solve, we need to solve a device for complicated systems like this. You know, we both have a mechanical and aerospace background, but something must have set you on the path even to go there. Do you come from a household or a community of engineers and entrepreneurs or where did it all start for you down this path?

Oh, awesome. Yeah. So I joined no Space as a co founder officially a few months ago and unofficially about six months back, where I was recruited as a CEO. So the company, the technology itself has actually been developed at a defense contractor called IRIS Technologies. They're based in Huntsville, Alabama, the place to be if you're a defense contractor in the US and so they're a successful defense contractor. They've been around for 13 years. And the co founders of that company also decided to spin out one of their technologies, which is now Nullspace, is the software that they've developed for themselves in order to develop products for their customers, which are, you know, anyone from, say, Raytheon, the likes of Raytheon and all the primes and subcontractors as well. What they do, what Iris does, is develop, again, very complicated RF technology devices for, you know, this is a cutting edge type stuff. And the tools that were available on the market currently were just not fast enough, were not accurate enough, didn't allow them to be creative enough to develop the kind of devices that the military needed from them. So they decided to develop their own software, their own simulation software that would be faster, that would be more accurate, and would allow them to solve very large problems and optimize those problems better than it was available on the market. And so They've developed what is now called nullspace. It was going under the name of Vlox for a while as an internal name, and then they've spun out the company this year. But the technology's been around, so that's how the company came about. And then they found me because my dream as a little girl, should we say? No, not as a little girl, but my dream for a long time now, since probably I worked in my very first startup out of ucsd, when I came out of UCSD was to be CEO of an engineering software company. A random, very strange dream to have, but it's been my dream. And they needed a CEO that understood engineering software and understood marketing, which is my background as well. And so now here we are. So my two co founders are also co founders of Iris Technologies. They have a ton of experience. They're brilliant. They're both PhDs in electromagnetics and very excited to be working with them.

I want to hear how you met them. But even before that, what are some of the different kind of products and companies you've worked on in your past?

Sure. So I started out in a little startup called Reaction Design in San Diego. And the way I started with them is I was a graduate student at ucsd. My advisor was Foreman Williams, who is a professor. Professor emeritus. Is that the official title? So he's been at UCSD for a long time. He's kind of one of the fathers of combustion. My background was in combustion and right out of. So we were doing simulation as a grad student, I was doing simulation and I was using software from this little startup in San Diego. And I was all excited about them. I invited them to come and give a talk to the graduate students and professors. And I guess they were so enamored with my initiatives that they hired me as a real engineer right out of grad school. And after about a year, I realized that I get too bored sitting in front of a computer. So I got sucked into the evil side of sales and marketing by the VP of sales there who said, hey, you can talk and developers like you, so let's just bring you onto the sales side and you'll be the sales engineer and talk to all the customers. So that's how I strayed away from real engineering and and went into the marketing side. I had my own consulting company for a while and then I worked. Fun fact, I worked for three startups, including that one that were all bought by a company called Ansys. So Ansys is a. Are you familiar? I don't know, as an engineer, have.

You heard Definitely no Ansys as from my. Yeah, from the design and analytics aspect. Right. Of simulation in the field of engineering, right?

Yeah, that's right. So one of the companies that the first startup got bought up after I left another company was bought up while I was still there. So I ended up working at Ansys for a while before jumping into another startup that got bought by Ansys again after I left.

You have the golden touch that Ansys should be paying you to find companies.

I know. So if you want to know what else Ansys is buying, just look at my resume. So my experience has been in a lot of startups in the engineering software space. I also worked at Altium, which is an engineering design or company that's developer of engineering design software specifically for printed circuit boards. That's also a San Diego based company and I was VP of brand marketing there before jumping to another startup in healthcare that only lasted for a year and I got, you know, sucked back into engineering software.

So obviously I'm sure you get this question a lot like how do you jump from engineer to marketing to just like this founder and leader. What have anything you've kind of picked up along the way that your engineering background lends you to kind of being a utility player of everything.

Absolutely. And the running joke is to my family. So when I chose engineering, my mom cried and she said because I was never really good at math, I brute forced myself through math. Higher math was actually much easier, like conceptual math, linear algebra because it's more visual and there's not as many numbers. And so, you know, I was always artistic. And so she said, you know, you could have been so many things. You could have gotten into art or music. You could have been such a beautiful dancer. Why are you throwing your life away on engineering? But I would not trade my engineering degree, especially my PhD for anything. It has given me such an ability to look at systems and quickly analyze how to improve systems. I'm an extrovert, so I like to build systems out of people. And that's how I got into marketing. Right. It gives me a chance to kind of build a system and a strategy, but not in front of a computer, but with a team. And so from the very the reason why I dreamt of becoming a CEO and engineering software company is because I've seen so many startups where there clearly have been holes that could have been easily fixed. And I was frustrated because I was leading marketing teams and I wasn't allowed to Touch anything on the development side or on the culture side or hiring strategy side. But I saw the holes because I see the system in its entirety and I think a lot of it is due to my engineering training.

That makes a lot of sense and I can relate a lot to that. And I think a lot of our audience members can, especially audience members who, you know, have a technical background, but then find themselves in co founder, entrepreneurial or leadership roles where it doesn't matter what title you had previously, you got to do everything anyway or know how to hire the experts for that. Right.

That's right.

Take us through a little bit of how you got to know this parent company that the, that this technology spun out of. I'm kind of curious just kind of from the relationships aspect because those are always interesting, how those stories come together.

Yeah. How does anyone know anyone nowadays? Of course, from LinkedIn. So I was in between. I was in between or in a career transition. I just left the healthcare startup that kind of exploded because of various reasons that again, I saw the holes and they didn't get fixed. It was frustrating to watch it explode. So I left that and I was thinking, okay, what should I do next? I thought about maybe consulting. I've had so much marketing experience, I could do it with my eyes closed. I love marketing and branding, but I just wanted more. I wanted more than just to be stuck in the marketing side. So, you know, I would take a few interviews here and there, I consulted with a few clients, but nothing was, yes, this is what I want to do. And then I randomly was on LinkedIn one day and saw this job pop up for a CEO of a simulation company. Simulation companies don't just come around. It's complex piece of software. It needs to be tested against real data. So takes a while to spin out an engineering company or to build one engineering software company or to build one from scratch. So when I saw that, I thought, oh my gosh, this is like, this is my dream. It's kind of a random dream to have if you think about it.

But before you go too much deeper, can you kind of explain the simulation aspect and just define that a little bit more for the audience?

Yeah, good question for those who are not engineers. So I think maybe probably the easiest way to relate it to if anybody who plays video games, you think about how when you go to play video games, it's a real world that's simulated in a video game. In a way, you feel like you're in walking down real streets and fighting real bad guys. Right. So it's us simulation of real world in a computer. Same thing with engineering simulation. You're simulating real physical phenomena. In our case, in the case of null space, it's the electromagnetic phenomena. You're simulating it in a computer through complex algebra, linear algebra, and then translated into algorithms that allows you to analyze your technology before you have to build it and test it in a lab to make sure that it performs properly. So simulation, essentially doing tests inside of a computer as opposed to in a lab.

Got it. Okay. And so when you met the company, what was the current status of the company itself? Like what had gone, where did they take, had they already spun the technology out of ERIS or where was it and where did you kind of, what were you handed?

Yeah, so no, they did not. Nothing. So the company did not exist. They just, they've been searching for a CEO. So it was kind of like a perfect match in a way. They've interviewed 20 CEOs by this point. They flew out three for in person interviews that didn't work out for various reasons. And at the same time, I wanted to be a CEO of this engineering software company and build something from scratch. And so just funny story and a tip for anyone listening if you're looking for a job on LinkedIn as you're listening to this podcast. So when I applied, I knew that no one really looks at LinkedIn applications because I know, because I've had people apply on LinkedIn to my jobs in the past that I've listed and you just get so overwhelmed you don't have the time to read through all the applications. So I dug through my LinkedIn connections and I found one person who happened to be actually a salesperson for a competitor company that we kind of exchanged some emails before and some notes on LinkedIn in the past, but never met in person. But just I figured what's it, maybe there's a chance that because he was connected to the parent company of co founders who are now my co founders. And I thought, hey, this is the one guy that has some sort of connections to me and to them. Let me just ask him if he can maybe introduce me or something or you know, give me some tips on how to connect to them. And he was so nice and he said, sure, you know, I know them. I not in personally, but we've been in touch. Let me reach out and just let them know that you're interested. Well, it turns out that is the only reason why they even pulled my resume out of the pile of resumes that they had that applied and then we set up a call the next day. I flew out to Huntsville, I think that same week. And it all moved pretty quickly because I had exactly what they needed and they had exactly what I was looking for. And there's no way we would have ever found out unless I made that extra effort of finding the connector. So very important.

Yeah. Amazing. So the company still has a presence in Huntsville, I'm guessing, just because it's. Yes, just business wise. Absolutely. Makes sense there. And I see the photos on your wall of rocket engine testing, which just brings up a lot of nostalgia for me. What's the kind of current status of the company today? Like, where is in terms of commercializing this technology?

Yeah, so when they brought me on board, the company was not spun out. They had the technology, the product was ready, they had a few customers already, but, you know, the company didn't exist. So we are now officially spun out. We're an official independent company. We have seed funding from the parent company. So we have half a million in seed funding. And we are now building out our. We build out our branding, our website. We're getting ready to go and attend ims, which is international Microwave symposium happening in San Diego on June 11, and a few other trade shows. So we're building out our marketing strategy, go to market strategy and looking to raise next round of funding sometime in September, October timeframe.

Okay. Really exciting time. The incubation phase into the get out of the nest phase. Right. Which is really exciting. What's the rest of the industry like around this? Like, where do you see industry specifically going around in terms of commercialization or maybe like the big incumbent in the space that you guys are kind of trying to go after? Like, take us through a little bit of like, current state of the market.

Yeah. So the market is going to continue to grow. There's more and more complexity as technologies are being developed. There are more and more RF devices as we go to, from 5G to 6G, military developments, aerospace developments. So antennas on satellites, for example, radars, they look for water on Mars and other planets. All of that requires very complex RF devices. In order to design more advanced RF technologies, you need simulation because you just can't design something, build it, test it, take that data from testing and go back and redesign. That just takes way too long. So in order to create more complex RF devices, you're going to have to simulate the current tools that are available in the market. So Ansys has a competitor product, a company called Altair, based in Bay Area or in San Francisco area has a competitor product, Dassault Systems, which any engineers are listening are probably familiar with SolidWorks. So they are huge multibillion dollar French based company. They have a simulation type product for electromagnetics. What makes us different is that we were developed from the ground up, so we're a younger product, so more modern solver. And we were developed from the ground up to scale on multiple computer cores so that we're perfect for a SaaS application. That's something that's on our roadmap. We're perfect for optimization, running multiple cycles quickly to optimize your design. That makes us different as well. So the market's only growing and expanding. As far as where the company is going to go, we expect there's probably going to be, we're going to be acquired in the future. Based on my knowledge of the market and working in the space for so long and working in three companies that got acquired either by something like a Dassault or Ansys or by possibly, you know, a company like Raytheon. Again, this is all possibilities that needs this kind of technology in house because they're developing a ton of cutting edge.

Yeah, you mentioned the market's pretty broad in terms of just where obviously radio frequencies have gone. Is there a specific focus out the gate of one specific industry or sub industry that you're going for?

Yeah, for us, naturally the first industry is defense. Just because the parent company is very familiar with that. We have a lot of warm introductions that we can make. The next one is aerospace. So. So satellites, anything flying into space and anything flying in air, they all need antennas and radar, RF type devices. Aerospace is next. Communications, again, anything with communications where you're designing complex radio frequency devices and then possibly medical space because things like MRIs and other types of devices require RF.

Awesome. Well, you know, just from being helpful, you know, I worked at United Technologies, Pratt Whitney, so I have a lot of former colleagues who are still there who I'm happy to make intros to. Many did go on to like the two big areas that I saw post Space Shuttle, which is what we worked on, was everyone went to Blue Origin or jpl. So if I can help make connections into that area. Happy to help there. Yeah. I specifically have some good friends who went on to kind of the component side of rovers. So lots of RF there obviously for getting rovers all the way to Mars there. So happy to help in that regard.

So you were a real engineer too?

Yeah, at one point. Yeah, we specifically I was on the space shuttle Main engine program where we. And I was on test and flight ops. So I tested in Mississippi at Stennis. I was there for every test and I was there for every third launch. Was my launch. So. Yeah.

Wow. Well, that's. Look at us. Poor Steve Buckley, he's probably, you know, embarrassed that we used to be too real. Although, you know, technically he went into the dark side of sales and marketing too.

So we all do. You know, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you might as well learn some of those skills. You never, you know, you know that sales works its way into just a great skill set to have. I wish we learned that in undergrad. And I petitioned hard to get to even take a RADI course as one of my electives. It was hard to do though, that's for sure. So we're looking ahead, you know, obviously in the short term, getting out to industry, raising more capital. Where can the community be helpful to kind of get you where you're headed in the next one to three years?

Yeah, I think, you know, we are getting ready to raise funding because that would help us to add some really cool features that we have in our roadmap. But we need money to do, like adding AI to automate the simulation and design process. So right now the process is pretty complex and discombobulated. And that's not just for us, but for competitors as well. You have engineers who are designing things in cad. Then those designs need to be cleaned up and what's called meshed. It's like a preparation step before going into the simulation step. Then there's a simulation step. Then you have to take the data out, analyze it. Then you manually have to take that data and read it, understand it, and then take the conclusions from it and take it into the design and redesign. We have the way the software is built. It's built for optimization loops and we have plans and technology that would allow us to add AI to it. So that design simulation loop is automated. So ideally in the future, you press a button that says, you know, it's kind of like generative design. Here's my initial antenna design now, simulated in all these different scenarios in all these different environments, and based on the results, go back to the design and optimize it. So that performs as I want without a person, you know, an engineer, being really too involved in that process. So that's for the roadmap for us and then how the community will be helpful. If anyone's in aerospace or defense or just a ref. Design space and would like a Demo of a cool new software that's very powerful. More powerful than the competitor tools. Let us know. Reach out to us at no Spaces.

Yeah, we've got a lot of listeners I know that are in that space specifically. And Southern California is just such a hotbed for aerospace, both large and startup too, so. Which is great to be able to try and see where it's fitting appropriately as well. So I've got a number of intros to make for you to get some feedback there. I know you're super involved in the community as well. What else? When you're not, you know, CEOing, what are you doing with your everyday or is there even time left in the day?

Yeah, I do have three kids, you know, so there's that. But yes, I'm actually a president of a nonprofit chapter of Orange county for Engineers Without Borders, which was a pretty strong nonprofit. And I don't know, are you familiar? Have you heard of them as.

Yeah, absolutely. I participated a little bit in undergrad. I think there was a club on campus that I didn't get to travel with, but helped did some at home organization work.

Yeah, it's a cool national organization. A lot of students were involved. That allows you to kind of build infrastructure and water supply sources in countries that don't have the engineering resources to do so. Allows you to travel all over the world. It's pretty neat. The organization took a pretty big hit during the pandemic. Like a really big hit. So the chapters became pretty discombobulated. There was leadership change a few times that happened. And so basically the Orange county chapter that used to be very strong kind of died off. And there was a handful of us that volunteered to be on the board and kind of bring the chapter back. And that's been a lot of work. A lot of the student chapters have died off. So we actually kind of adopted the San Diego State chapter because the San Diego chapter, if anybody's listening, if you're in Engineers Without Borders for San Diego, it sounds like that chapter kind of disappeared. And so they reached out to us and said we can't find any professional chapters to help us out. You know, will you guys be our mentors? So. And we're pretty far. We're like two hours away from San Diego State. And so we're trying to kind of mentor them and see if we can help them out. So that's been my non profit work.

That's great. I'm just impressed the students even reached out. It's really hard to even get even digitally off campus. These days as a student I can see I'm spending a day a week at sdsu. So let me go search around and see where I can help make connections there as well too. Or just intro me to the club and I'll see if I can be a connector there too. Yeah. Okay. The biggest question of the interview, everyone has to know. Everyone really wants to know. Favorite taco spot. You've obviously you've traveled the world, you've lived in multiple spots around the country. Have you had, have you found the perfect or favorite taco?

Okay, so I have a non answer, but it's a good story.

Okay, okay.

Oh, I don't. The only time I eat tacos are with margaritas. I love margaritas. Okay. And so there's just no reason actually Mexican food in general for me, I don't find the reason to eat it unless it comes with a really good margarita.

It's a great rule to have for sure.

Right. The problem is I kind of quit alcohol maybe three months ago or so just because during Pandemic, like so many people, it got to the point where it was like one bottle of wine a night. You know, it's much more fun to do a PowerPoint with a glass of wine or a margarita to the point where I was like, okay, I'm just too old to keep doing this. Like this is messing with my stomach. It's just not, you know, not healthy. So I kind of decided to cut out alcohol, which means margaritas. I don't even miss the wine. But there is a margarita in El Torito, which is a chain which I know they're in San Diego too. And I don't know if it's the same in San Diego, but there's an El Torito by John Wayne Airport right off of 405. So if anybody's driving from San Diego to LA and needs to stop responsibly for the night and drink a margarita before continuing their way. El Dorito by John Wayne. It's always empty. The food is, the tacos are eh. But they're spicy. Jalapeno cucumber margarita. Get it with salt instead of tajin. It is like to die for. It's the one thing I miss on my non alcohol diet and sure eat some tacos with it. But yeah, margarita is it.

Well one I definitely remember the Eltorito that used to be across the street from UCSD next to the brewery that was there. Both are gone. So you pour a little margarita out for in their memory. But the rise right now, what's the all the rage is the non alcoholic cocktails with actually like almost like good for you Adaptogens and others. We should help, should help find the community. Should help find you a non alcoholic margarita so that you can have a taco. That's the biggest help we will do.

It just sounds sad.

No, you'll still get the flavor and it'll actually be good for you. Maybe even hydrating. You know all the other, I hear you, I'm pro alcohol so you know, I'll drink the alcohol for you. But all right, we'll still count that and we'll still add that to the tacos and tech database which we now have hundreds of spots that have been mentioned. So even with your non answer we'll take it and maybe we'll find you near John Wayne there at some point for a celebration.

Awesome.

Well, really appreciate you coming on podcast telling the story. We're really excited to follow along on the story here, you know, because Null space I feel like is just starting to stretch its wings out of getting out of the nest. So, you know, don't be a stranger. Let us know how it's going and we'll bring you back on to hear, you know, once you've landed those big deals with the salt and others. Or maybe just Ansys just is like, oh, let's just dial up. Let's just dial her up and see if she's ready to go here for her number four.

So we did just launch like two months ago, so give us like five years.

Well, thanks again. Good luck at the upcoming conference here in San Diego at ims. And thanks again for coming on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. And it's a pleasure to talk to a fellow recovering engineer.

Exactly. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to the Tacos and Tech podcast. You can find all of our episodes on freshbrewedtech.com as well as on Twitter at Tacos and Tech Pod. Also follow Fresh Brew Tech on all of our social platforms and make sure to share and give a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Play. Thanks again.

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech in tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it.

Hey, startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started.

You want tech and talk those tacos in tech. You know we got it.

Hey.