About Talisman
Built by engineers who know
what downtime actually costs.
Talisman was founded by a team of petroleum engineers, AI researchers, and field operators who saw firsthand how much production was being lost to static, decades-old control logic — and knew the technology existed to fix it.
Our Story
From the wellsite to the software stack.
Talisman was founded in 2019 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma — a town built on oil and gas. Our founders spent years optimizing plunger lift wells the hard way: driving routes to adjust timers, watching production fall on off-days, and manually diagnosing liquid loading events after the damage was done.
The insight was simple: the data to do this better already existed. Pressure transducers, flow meters, and RTUs were capturing everything — it was just sitting unanalyzed in a historian or discarded entirely.
We built the first version of our optimization engine on a $200 edge device connected to a single well in southeastern Oklahoma. In 90 days, that well's production improved by 34%. We've been scaling that result ever since.
Founded in Okmulgee, OK. First pilot deployment on a single plunger lift well.
Closed seed funding. Expanded to 50 wells across three Oklahoma operators.
Launched Talisman Edge Module v2. Expanded to Appalachian Basin and Permian.
Crossed 500 active well deployments. Opened engineering office in Houston.
Released multi-well fleet optimization. Launched Industry 4.0 product line.
Values
How we build, and why it matters.
Mission-Critical First
We only build AI for environments where failure has real consequences — production losses, safety incidents, regulatory exposure. Consumer-grade reliability is not acceptable here.
Edge-Native Architecture
Our systems are designed to operate autonomously in the field, with or without cloud connectivity. Intelligence lives at the point of control, not in a distant data center.
Operator in Control
Autonomous does not mean opaque. Every AI decision is logged, explainable, and overridable. Operators retain full authority — the AI augments, not replaces, their judgment.
Field-First Engineering
Our engineers spend time in the field, not just in product sprints. Every feature is tested against the messiness of real well behavior before it reaches production.
Leadership
The people behind the platform.
Waleed Nasir
Chief Product Officer / CEO
Inventor of a self-learning, self-optimizing, AI plungerlift optimization system which helps oil & gas operators increase production, improve cycle efficiency, and reduce operational overhead.
Tammer Riad
Finance and Operations
A seasoned professional with a multifaceted background across financial markets. Former COO of a fintech startup and director at a major nonprofit. Expert in scaling teams and processes for high-growth companies.
Aqib Rehman
Chief AI Researcher / Chief Technology Officer
10+ years designing AI/ML solutions for oil & gas and power industry. Previously led field ops at a major E&P operator, optimizing production across 500+ wells.
Kyle Adkins
Operating Partner
Petroleum engineer with 15+ years in upstream operations. Former production manager at a major operator, overseeing 200+ wells and $100M in annual revenue.
Colby Kuriyama
Head of Growth
Growth leader with 10+ years in B2B SaaS. Former head of growth at a leading enterprise software company, scaling ARR from $5M to $50M in 3 years.
Bobby Ventrelli
VP business development
Business development executive with 15+ years in industrial technology. Former VP of sales at a major IIoT provider, closing deals with 5 of the top 10 oil & gas operators.
Micailiah Farris
Chief Marketing Officer
Marketing executive with 10+ years in B2B technology. Former CMO at a leading enterprise software company, driving brand strategy and demand generation to fuel hypergrowth.
Aubrey Rogers
Head of Customer Success
Customer success leader with 10+ years in SaaS. Former head of customer success at a major enterprise software company, building a world-class team to drive retention and expansion.