“Orlando Business Journal predicts job growth for Serious Simulations”

How Florida tech firm Serious Simulations turned TV interviews into an Army contract

by | Aug 15, 2022 | Serious News

Image provided by Getty Images (DanielBendjy)

Two TV spots paid off for Serious Simulations — literally.

By Alex Soderstrom – OBJ Staff Writer & Orlando Inno Reporter

August 15, 2022, 11:07am EDT Updated 08/15/2022 2:51 pm

Chris Chambers appeared on Orlando news stations last September to promote his tech firm’s innovative training grenades — not knowing the U.S. Army was watching.

News stations Fox 35 Orlando and WFTV both aired interviews with Chambers, CEO of Orlando-based Serious Simulations LLC, and demonstrations of the company’s “sim grenades.” Chambers and Serious Simulations employees showed how the realistic grenade “explodes” by emitting sound and flashes of light. At the time of the interview, Serious Simulations had recently won a contract to provide the grenades to a federal agency for training.

After the interviews, Chambers got a call from an unexpected organization: the U.S. Army.

The Army operates a contracting command in Orlando, often considered the world capital for military training and simulation, that awards more than $2 billion annually in contracts and awards. The lack of a safe and realistic way to simulate grenade use in live training long bedeviled the Army and militaries around the world. The news channel spotlights on Serious Simulations’ patented grenade device caught the attention of the Army, which reached out to the small business about a contract opportunity.

Those TV spots paid off for Serious Simulations — literally. In March, the Army Contracting Command Orlando awarded Serious Simulations a contract worth up to $2.8 million to prototype simulated hand grenades, mines and similar devices. If the firm presents the Army with an acceptable prototype, Serious Simulations may begin mass production of the simulated grenade as soon as the end of the year, which would create the need for new hires, Chambers told Orlando Inno.

Chris Chambers

Here’s more from Chambers on why his company won the Army contract and what it means for the firm’s future growth.

Why is the Army interested in simulated grenades? There was a practice grenade that was a pyrotechnic-type grenade, so it only could be thrown in a range or a safe area. It had a little fuse that made a blast sound, and it was a steel grenade. Nothing existed for training with soldiers around, so that if it hits somebody by accident, it wouldn’t cause any injuries. Other grenades tried in the past were hard, large and had to purposefully be thrown not near soldiers… It’s been considered one of the gaps in training environments for many years.

How does your firm’s sim grenade work? We’re purposefully vague about how it communicates. Upon simulated detonation, it interacts with a receiver and the receiver calculates if the trainees were killed, injured or not affected. If you dive behind something, it can detect if you’re killed, wounded or nothing.

The sim grenade operates like a real hand grenade, except it uses light and sound to recreate an explosion. It includes a pin, safety clip, hammer and fuse, just like a real grenade.

Around the same time Serious Simulations won its contract, the Army awarded three similar contracts to bigger companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp. Why do you think Serious Simulations stood out against bigger contractors? Larger companies are maybe more constrained. We were more flexible. We’re all veterans here. Eighty percent of the folks I work with are veterans. We have a common experience, and we know what’s lacking and what would be better.

Will Serious Simulations grow as a result of the contract? We have a certain amount of time to bring what we’ve developed to the Army, incorporate feedback and wait until the Army says it’s ready for production or they say “It’s a bad idea; we’re not going to do this.” We probably will know about production by the end of the year. If both [the simulated grenade contract and a separate virtual trainer contract] go into production, we’ll have permanent growth in the workforce. Hopefully by next year, we’ll be on a nice growth path and be able to move out of the University of Central Florida business incubator. If we had a perfect world where these are adopted in large numbers, we’d be hiring dozens of people.

Why did Serious Simulations decide to focus on training weapons and munitions? Our company didn’t start out as a munitions or simulated arms company. We started with virtual reality simulators for combat soldiers, security folks and even athletes. Early on, we thought to differentiate ourselves. Six years ago, everybody was using fake weapons in VR simulators. We brought real weapons in and created an electronic package we can attach to the weapons. We got involved with other live training weapons, such as grenade launchers. Our company has dominated in the last few years in weapons implementation.

Serious Simulations LLC

Founded: 2014

Address: 3259 Progress Dr. Suites 171-173, Orlando 32826

Employees: 20

Website: https://serioussimulations.com/