Former NEC Displays CEO Bouman Now In Charge At Hologram-ish Startup Proto

February 18, 2025 by Dave Haynes

One of the eyebrow-raisers I read this morning as I started shovelling and sorting my email inboxes was word that the LA start-up that started and leads the niche business of hardware and services for hologram-ish transparent LCD displays has a new CEO – a guy coming over from the far more conventional side of the flat panel displays business.

Todd Bouman was most recently the President, CEO and Chair of  Sharp/NEC Display Solutions, Americas, and now he’s CEO of Proto, the little Van Nuys company that uses clever lighting and video capture techniques – coupled with specially-designed enclosures – to create the visual illusion of (usually) life-sized people or objects appearing where they’re not.

Bouman takes over from Proto founder and inventor David Nussbaum, who is very much staying with the company but is now able to focus on the strategy, innovation and dream-selling of the tech – which he has been very good at doing in the years since Proto started up (it was initially called Portl). Nussbaum has a P.T. Barnum streak in him, and I mean that in the nicest way.

This is the common story, I suspect, of someone working his or her butt off to make an idea and a company viable, and realizing true growth requires someone with genuine CEO experience and broader business ties into the pro AV business.

It is a huge shift for Bouman, who was running the America’s wing of a deeply-established and respected pro display company with lavish offices in suburban Chicago, to one operating out of shared warehouse space in a strip mall-like development in north-north LA. Bouman was in charge as NEC was joint-ventured/merged/absorbed into Sharp, and left the blended company about a year ago. Prior to that, he was at Samsung and earlier at HP – in both cases focused on the notebook PC market.

“As the founder, Proto is like a child to me,” says Nussbaum in the PR announcing Bouman’s role. “Entrusting it to someone else wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I needed absolute confidence that the new leader had the experience and proven ability to take my vision for Proto to the next level. Todd Bouman is that person. With his dynamic leadership, I’m confident he’ll help fulfill my mission of making Proto Hologram technology an essential part of daily life. Proto has already accomplished more than I could have dreamed when I was back in my living room trying to invent something people said would only happen in the future. Todd is the kind of transformational leader who can make sure that future is now.”

“Proto is poised as an industry leader to revolutionize the way we interact with digital content,” adds Bouman, who is based out of Chicago. “I am thrilled to lead this extraordinarily innovative company as it scales its transformative technology to new heights. My experience in driving growth and innovation will help us accelerate Proto’s mission – and David’s original futuristic vision – of making holographic technology accessible to everyone.”

From PR:

The change comes at an extraordinary time for Proto after a record year for revenue, the successful launch of its next generation hologram devices – the full-size Proto Luma and desk-top sized M2 – and rapidly increasing adoption of its AI tools across many industries including finance, enterprise, healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, sports and entertainment. Proto is launching its Series B fundraise in Q2 to accelerate new development initiatives and market growth. 

The PR continues …

Proto has had a steady flow of news in recent months including the beginning of the first ever actual doctor-patient hologram appointments, announced at UC Berkeley and already expanding across the network of clinics run by West Cancer Center. The deployment of the first hologram ad network at 30 premier Simon mall locations and growing to 100 by Q4 also made headlines. Proto has been singled out as one of the most important companies at CES, NRF and AWS re:Invent, where it demonstrated another first, an autonomous conversation between AI hologram agents.

In addition, Proto continues to grow its business with all the  pro sports leagues;  expansion into more top universities; massive media saturation including projects that reach super-influencer MrBeast’s following of nearly 500 million; and deepening partnerships with companies such as AARP, Accenture, BestBuy, CBS, Christie’s, HPE, PwC, and Verizon.

“Proto is all about bringing people together – giving them real presence when they can’t be together across space or time – remember, William Shatner called Proto a Time Machine,” says Nussbaum. “We’ve got our Series B raise approaching, exciting collaborations with some of the most well known companies on earth, and a roadmap of development that will make Proto the solution for even more needs. Whether you’re a partner, customer, investor or just someone who is excited by discovering what’s changing the world next, we’ll keep hustling to impress you.”

I visited Nussbaum up in Van Nuys last fall, and had a good look around his facility. He’s not overly fond of how I have described his product, particularly the first-generation enclosures that looked very much like ready-to-install shower enclosures for homes. He was in the midst of selling and shipping a newer generation that gets away from that look, and greatly lowered costs, while at the same time boosting the specs and capabilities.

Calling something a hologram when it isn’t always makes me a little crazy, but Nussbaum has quite reasonably argued that he needed to call the tech something that potential partners and end-users could wrap their heads around. Going with Custom Transparent LCD Enclosures That Create Illusions was not going to work.

There are now several companies with products you could say have been “inspired” by Proto, and some have already risen up and failed. Almost certainly the reason that Proto leads its narrowly defined market is Nussbaum, and it is nice to see he now has a wing-man with deep business experience who can take on that side of things and allows Nussbaum to be Nussbaum.

I think the virtual presence thing has genuine potential, but it has to be carefully thought-out and applied. It’s the same argument that should be applied to any display technology and project, as Wow Factor and eye-candy jobs tend to hit their Best Before dates quickly. Stuff that makes people say Oh Wow when they first see it can get ignored in subsequent encounters, so there needs to be a reason why viewers get and stay engaged.

Some of the work I’ve seen – like objects rotating kinda-sorta in thin air – leave me cold. But real-time virtual appearances of celebrities and genuinely important people have real potential.

You can read about Proto in the free-to-download Sixteen:Nine Future Displays report, which has 70+ stories about display tech.