Most Penn State students spend the first few weeks back to school partying and ignoring that summer is over, but not Brady Davidson.

While working as a sales tax reversal audit intern over the summer 2023, Davidson faced a mountain of paperwork each day. He was tasked with checking and verifying the company’s sales tax audits but felt the entire process could be streamlined with the help of AI.

After returning to school, Davidson reached out to Nittany AI Student Society President Ryan Hokimi to see if any members would be interested in helping him work on his ideas. After sharing the message with the group, Hokimi determined he was the perfect fit for the job and began building a software company, Saveware, with Davidson.

After a year of working on the company, Davidson and Hokimi raised over $35,000 between pitch competitions during Penn State’s Start-Up Week powered by PNC and Invent Penn State Summer Founders Program.

“It’s crazy to think we have just under $40,000 in funding from Penn State, and they own 0% of our company, which is incredible,” Davidson said.

Penn State hasn’t just given Davidson and Hokimi funding, it’s also given them resources through the Penn State Launch Box powered by PNC and Summer Founders Program to help grow their company through Penn State Alumni.

“I would say we definitely have plenty of mentors/advisors, but they’re helping us know how to run the business. They’re not helping us run the business,” Davidson added.

Throughout their summer in State College with the Summer Founders Program, the duo met with entrepreneurs invested in helping Penn State students, no matter the company.

“Just being able to hear from somebody and even get 30 minutes out of their day can be insurmountable to a startup like this because the insights they have and the ways they got burned can help us avoid those same mistakes,” Davidson said.

Hokimi was also aware of the importance of Penn State alumni to their company.

“The Penn State network has been invaluable, as a lot of people genuinely take a lot of time to help us whenever we need it,” Hokimi said.

Although Penn State has been a massive part of helping Davidson and Hokimi grow Saveware, it’s the pair’s innovation and drive that’s made the company so successful. While being full-time students, both work on their company all hours of the day and oftentimes will stay up late to fix coding errors in their system.

As a senior computer science major, Hokimi said the work is fun to him even though, at times, it can be tough to juggle school and work.

“I just work all the time, but it’s fun. I like what I do and I like the people with whom I do it,” he said.

Over the past year, Davidson and Hokimi hired three interns from Penn State’s Nittany AI Student Society who worked at other start-ups and have been extremely beneficial to the company.

While the software produced by Saveware would help sales tax auditing companies, Davidson felt strongly the company would not only eliminate internships but also had the potential to make tax companies more money.

“Our play is really saving them time because we’re able to automate so many of their processes, like my job as an intern, of all this data scraping and data harvesting,” Davidson said. “We’re able to do that for them so then tax professionals can come in and do their high-level work. That’s what we want — to unlock and to keep their employees away from doing these tedious tasks.”

After winning his first pitch competition in the spring, Davidson even reached out to his former boss to see if they wanted to try using his and Hokimi’s software to streamline their process.

Davidson and Hokimi are working on their code to try and expand their clientele to other sales tax companies. While their code is geared toward helping sales tax companies in Pennsylvania, Davidson is aiming to eventually write a code that can be used nationwide.

While Davidson is a junior, Hokimi is a senior and is planning on working for Saveware full-time after graduation this spring.

“I think we’re in a spot now where we can do this full-time, and I’ve always liked the idea of being my own boss,” Hokimi said.

Davidson said Saveware encouraged him to pursue a major in corporate entrepreneurship and innovation.

As for the future of Saveware, Davidson and Hokimi don’t plan on slowing down any time soon as they’re already setting money aside to hire salary employees and themselves.

“Eventually, I think we want to be able to say we forever changed the way sales tax reverse audits are conducted in the industry, and I would love to be the new standard,” Davidson said.