Malamute Quiets the Noise, Amplifies Communications

Noise. In NYC especially, it’s all around us. Working in a noisy office might be a nuisance.  But in a manufacturing setting or on the battlefield, noise can become not only a distraction, but a significant impediment to efficiency or even safety.

Malamute, a startup headed by two Cornell Tech MBA graduates, is working to solve this challenge by creating an AI-driven wearable tech platform that will enable workers, be they factory employees or military personnel, to communicate more efficiently and effectively, even in loud environments, where speaking directly with each other isn’t possible.

Kara Myren & Bil Leon at NYC Innovation Hot Spot Meeting Showcasing Malamute

“Our offering turns speech into text into data,” said Bil Leon, Malamute co-founder.  “We are looking at users that are not at a desk, all they have is voice, but they are still relying on technology to communicate—in challenging conditions, and often different languages.”

Malamute is not named for the large and fluffy dog breed but derives from a bit of word play—mal, from the Latin for bad, and mute, as in no sound. The concept behind Malamute was inspired in part by Leon’s experiences serving in the US military. 

Leon grew up in Westchester, Pennsylvania, joining the Army right after high school and serving in Iraq. Upon returning to the US, he got his undergraduate degree from Westchester University in chemistry, and then pursued a PhD in chemistry at Lehigh University, also in PA.

Leon’s first experience with entrepreneurship was during his PhD studies. “We had two startups, one with NSF funding,” he said. “They didn’t go well, but the experience sparked in me the idea of taking technical skills and applying them to commercial business needs. I decided to pursue an MBA as well, which brought me to Cornell Tech. That’s where I really got into XR [extended reality, including augmented reality and virtual reality] and AI.”

For one of his classes, Leon had worked with a few other students to build out a platform for “de-noising” audio—reducing the background noise that can impede communications. “I found that wasn’t enough—I wanted to go into factories and get to know workers and provide a more systemic solution,” he said.

“Whether in a manufacturing setting or in the military, in an operational environment you can’t automate everything—the ability to talk effortlessly is critical,” he added. “First, we built a Chat GPT for voice in a manufacturing environment. You can think of what we’ve created as an audio version of Slack, or Microsoft Teams for voice.”

Many new technologies are developed with the assumption of a wireless connection to the Internet. For Malamute, creating a solution that can work in a “closed” environment—locations where WIFI connections are poor or nonexistent—is key.

Understanding the need to create a system that can operate without the internet comes from Leon’s military background as well as his academic studies. “An active chemistry lab is a closed environment; with the military you are in the field,” said Leon. “And then factories are often low-tech. The factory floor may not have WiFi; certainly, in military use, internet connection may not be available. I learned this from personal experience as well as our customer discovery process during I-Corps. We are developing a technology that can work without internet connectivity.” 

Malamute co-founder Kara Myren joined forces with Leon in 2022 when a mutual friend introduced them, thinking they had aligned professional interests. Myren grew up in Northern Virginia and studied writing at James Madison University in VA. “I was interested in visual novels and storytelling, but I also fell in love with coding—and that led to my first taste of entrepreneurship,” said Myren.

Myren spent ten years in software development, launching her own video game, Animal Gods, an action-adventure platform she created with funds she raised on Kickstarter.  That was followed by coding work for the federal government, including for the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

“I’m not a gamer, but I understand gaming at a software level,” said Myren. “When I was working on government web sites, I was focused on the user perspective; I wanted to make things that were fun and not stressful to use. I wanted to make tech that enables people to live better lives, and that’s something I saw in Malamute—creating tech that helps people improve their work experience.”

Malamute has gone through New York I-Corps Network programming three times, including the inaugural Discovery Bootcamp at Tech Connect in 2024.

“I really enjoyed the I-Corps experience,” said Myren. “Not only for what we learned but also for being part of the cohort, and hearing about what everyone else was learning as well. When you’re in a startup, you’re so busy working on your own that it can be hard to find community. I loved being part of that.”

“It was important to discover just how valuable customer discovery interviews were,” she added. “I initially wanted to approach things as a sale, but I realized the value of learning and not just jumping into selling.”

Leon found the I-Corps experience to be eye-opening. “I-Corps pushed us to be disciplined about everything—the framework, the interviews, being deliberate, not asking leading questions, how to prepare the BMC, and writing everything down,” he said. “In the day-to-day work of entrepreneurship, you don’t always pay attention to those details.”

The Malamute team benefitted from working with the NYC Innovation Hot Spot, participating in numerous workshops including legal seminars, NSF writing, DOD and NSF SBIR workshops, and storytelling.

“We also did TechConnect, including the Bootcamp,” added Leon. “Tech Connect was the best—it’s such a great opportunity to network and learn.”

Malamute received a NYC Innovation Hot Spot grant for prototyping, which they used for virtual reality (VR) headsets. “We built a new product and system and got to keep working on it after demo day, and that enabled us to maximize our opportunity at Tech Connect,” said Leon. “The prototype program changed our thinking in terms of wearables and augmented reality—that would not have happened without the Hot Spot.”

Malamute now utilizes wearable technology. “We are getting it out of their hands and onto their face or wrist so it’s not obscuring hands or vision,” said Leon. “Ultimately it will involve just putting on simple glasses, so we aren’t asking people to learn something new. The tech is embedded in how they go about their day. Our goal is improving communications to make their job experience better.”

Malamute has eight patents pending and is preparing to submit Air Force and Department of Defense SBIR applications, as well as to AFWERX, the Air Force innovation arm.  While Malamute has not yet launched, it has run several pilots with prospective clients, focusing on different kinds of use cases. “Some are paid, some are unpaid, but they all enable us to collect data and learn,” said Myren.

Leon shared that some pilots have gone so well that the client has wanted to keep the technology. “Still, it’s hard to turn a capital expenditure into an operational expenditure—that’s something we are working on,” said Leon. “We are also working to identify the right decision-makers—that can be challenging. The discipline of I-Corps is helping us with that.”