◆ New York City · Building since 1993
PeteFermoselle
Creative Technologist · Founder & CTO
Twenty-seven years founding companies and building the technology inside them. I've scaled a 125,000-guest-a-year operation as CEO and shipped industry-first AR product as CTO — I build both halves now — the creative that sells it and the software that runs it.
Two careers,
one operator
Most creative technologists have never run a P&L. Most operators have never shipped the product. I've spent 27 years doing both at once — which is why the creative work lands with a business behind it, not just a look.
The operator
Scaled it to 120 people
Founder and CEO of Indoor Extreme Sports — paintball, VR, escape rooms, axe throwing — grown to two NYC locations across 54,000 sq ft, a team of 120, 125,000+ annual guests and $23M+ in revenue. Sixteen years of hiring, scheduling, safety, margin and throughput.
The technologist
Built it, licensed it
Co-Founder, CTO and Director of Licensing at Virtual Threads / DeKryptic, driven to $25M+ in sales. Pioneered industry-first AR-activated apparel and negotiated 65+ IP licensing deals — Marvel, DC, Nintendo, Warner Bros., Disney — while directing the AI animation and retouching pipelines behind the campaigns.
A category, invented on the job
Kids under ten couldn’t play paintball. So I built something they could play.
That age group was most of the birthday market and we had nothing to sell them. Universal Electronics had a paintball practice rig that hadn’t found a market — an infrared barrel that fired on the gun’s percussion, and a receiver you set up downfield.
I zip-tied the receivers onto paintball masks instead. Nothing was synced, so any barrel could trigger any receiver — which meant teams. Take a hit, your mask flashes red, you’re called out. That was paintball laser tag, running on a 1,200 sq ft field built for the players nobody else could serve.
Universal Electronics saw it and asked me to help develop it into a product. It shipped as iCombat. I took exclusive US distribution for eighteen months — not because I wanted a distribution business, but because it was the price of locking exclusivity for New York State. The system is played at venues worldwide today, with online membership and player stats. icombat.com
The rollout ran on two tracks at once: a training sale to law enforcement and military, and a consumer launch at Indoor Extreme Sports under the line “As real as it gets.” The training content wasn’t theoretical — it came out of active-threat response simulations I coordinated with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office and its SWAT team, and then with school and transit agencies running their own preparedness programs.
Debut
West Point — annual paintball games, then invited back for the Wolfpack Games
Distribution
Exclusive US distributor for the first 18 months
Shown to
Defense buyers at I/ITSEC, the annual military simulation & training conference
Virtual Threads Inc.
Co-founded the fashion-tech company behind DeKryptic, reaching $25M+ in sales by merging apparel with emerging tech. Shipped industry-first AR-activated apparel — tees, outerwear, backpacks, trading cards — and built the DTG-plus-AI production backend that held retail through the pandemic. Stepped back from day-to-day in 2024; remains on the board as a technical consultant.
65+ IP deals
Marvel · DC · Nintendo
Indoor Extreme Sports
Founded and scaled an indoor entertainment operation to two locations, 54,000 sq ft, a team of 120 and $23M+ in revenue. Featured by ABC, CBS and FOX, highlighted by Red Bull, and covered twice by The New York Times. Invented paintball laser tag here, which Universal Electronics developed into iCombat. Closed in 2020 under New York City's pandemic restrictions on indoor recreation.
125,000+ guests / yr
Invented iCombat
Ruthless Art Apparel
Co-founded a licensed apparel brand that did $17M in sales, distributed through Macy's, Jimmy Jazz, DTLR and 100+ vendors. Directed design and production, including overseas manufacturing and licensing.
100+ vendors
American Color Graphics
From Scitex Brisque RIP operator to Adobe ColorSync and Kodak digital proofing, ending as Head Retoucher — high-end image prep for Maxim, Stuff and the Macy's catalog.
was trained
Creative Freelancer
Paintbox operator through SPA Digital. Built AVON's digital photography workflow and studio; retouching and design for agencies including Landor, Philip Morris and Deutsch.
digital studio
Restaurants & Nightlife
Where the operating instincts started — years in New York restaurants and nightlife before the creative career began.
Licensed
properties
Part of 65+ IP licensing deals negotiated as Director of Licensing at Virtual Threads / DeKryptic, 2017–2024. Properties remain the trademarks of their respective owners.
Activations via BioWorld
AR and AI activations produced for these properties through BioWorld.
Direct licenses
Licenses held directly at Virtual Threads / DeKryptic.
The showreel
Stills become motion. Sketches become photography. Archive becomes campaign. Every frame below started as something a brand already owned.
AI Animation · Apparel
Isaac Morris LTD
Still model photography turned into full-motion video and retouched stills.
The stories
behind the work
Direct license
The Boondocks
AI photoshoot, composited apparel, and the model turn AI video rarely lands.
Read the case study →
Activation via BioWorld
BioWorld
AR filters for Walmart USA rollouts — 150,000+ downloads under 8MB.
Read the case study →
AI-driven Shopify drop
Bode — World Tour Drop
A full AI-driven apparel drop, generative shoot to storefront.
Read the case study →
Drag the proof
Retouching is where this career started — Scitex, ColorSync, Kodak proofing, Head Retoucher at 24. The AI tools changed the speed, not the standard.
Composite, generative fill, colour grade, cleanup, and full model animation — delivered to the tolerance a print buyer expects, not the tolerance a prompt gives you.
Selected clients
What I
build
Two halves of the same job. The creative work that makes a product look worth buying, and the software that actually runs it — booking, payments, storefront, automation. Most people do one of these. I ship both.
Creative production
Stills, motion and campaign imagery from what a brand already owns.
AI Animation
Flat stills become 15–45 second motion. Model photography that walks, fabric that moves, product that turns — without booking a second shoot day.
- Runway · Kling · Hailuo
- Social & broadcast delivery
- Full-motion model campaigns
Photo Retouching
Twenty-seven years of high-end retouching, now accelerated. Composite, clean up, colour grade and extend — at print-buyer tolerance.
- Photoshop · generative fill
- Composite & colour
- Catalogue & e-commerce volume
Design → Photo → Video
The full pipeline. A design becomes photoreal imagery, then becomes a moving campaign — with licensed characters held on-model throughout.
- AI illustration & photography
- Licensed-IP accuracy
- AR activation available
Product & systems
Working software, designed and shipped end to end — schema, payments, admin, deploy.
Booking & Operations
Availability, resources, deposits, waivers, passes, gift cards, refunds — the operational logic an off-the-shelf plugin can’t express. Sixteen years running venues taught me where those systems break.
- Next.js · TypeScript · Postgres
- Card payments & in-person POS
- Staff roles, permissions, audit trails
Storefronts & Commerce
Branded customer-facing storefronts, and back-office systems wired into Shopify — product sync, draft orders, refunds, signature-verified webhooks. Plus the lifecycle email that has to fire correctly every single time.
- Shopify Admin API
- Stripe Connect & payouts
- Transactional & lifecycle email
AI Assistants & Media Pipelines
Assistants that read a system’s configuration, work out what’s missing and write back structured setup — not a chatbot bolted onto an FAQ. And the video infrastructure behind a modern feed.
- Claude API · structured output
- Resumable upload & adaptive streaming
- Analytics & reporting
Available for brand & agency work
Animation · Retouching · Systems