An estimated 600K calls are made to 911 across the United States daily. Each call is urgent and a minute delay in handling a call can mean the literal difference between life and death. RapidSOS is an intelligent safety platform that provides 911 dispatchers and other emergency responders a data connection with details of each call including voice, GPS location, type of emergency, and medical and demographic data. This information is collected from over 500M connected devices, sensors, and apps in homes, buildings, public transport, and personal devices. In 2023 alone, the company processed over 3B data feeds to respond to and manage 170M+ incidents. The company has also leveraged automation to unlock critical insights from this data, providing predictive incident awareness and modeling, weapons detection, crowd estimation, geocoding services, language translation, automatic response recommendations, incident verification, and sentiment analysis capabilities.
AlleyWatch caught up with RapidSOS Cofounder and CEO Michael Martin to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more…
How much did you raise and who were your investors?
We raised an additional $75M led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, which closes the company’s latest round at $150M.
Tell us about the product or service that RapidSOS offers.
RapidSOS is an intelligent safety company that securely links life-saving data from 500+ million connected devices, apps and sensors directly to AI-enabled RapidSOS Safety Agents, 911, and field responders globally. When seconds matter, RapidSOS is your lifeline to safety.
What inspired the start of RapidSOS?
I’m from rural Indiana and I moved to New York City for a job during college.
I was walking home late at night and I realized I was being followed by someone and suddenly felt unsafe.
In this situation I realized that I wouldn’t be able to take out my phone and dial 911 and have a conversation. I actually called an Uber instead and the car pulled up within 2 minutes.
That made me think – how, in the 21st century, can you pull out your phone and push a button for an Uber, but 911 can’t even receive your name or your exact location without a phone call?
How is it different?
RapidSOS was built in partnership with public safety, with a focus on keeping local communities safe. RapidSOS’ product and partner innovations have made it easier for people in need to connect to live safety agents, 911, and field responders, helping to improve response times and save lives.
What market does RapidSOS target and how big is it?
RapidSOS is linked to the Emergency Response System market but it has created its own category – intelligent safety – to link data from 540M+ connected devices into 4,400+ public safety software systems running in 16,000+ 911/first responder agencies.
What is the business model?
RapidSOS was built in partnership with Public Safety and supported by technology partners that securely link data from devices, apps, sensors to first responders in an emergency. RapidSOS Portal® is a free, web-based tool that provides a real-time view of emergencies in your jurisdiction plus training or administrative resources.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
RapidSOS was originally founded by a group of tech nerds. We’ve seen first-hand the power of public safety professionals and technologists to work together to transform response. This pace is only accelerating with the proliferation of connected devices and artificial intelligence. We don’t see anything slowing in the near-term, particularly with the public sector embracing and helping to develop new technologies like RapidSOS to better serve their communities. 2023 was a record year for emergency phone calls; although economies may slow, emergencies and emergency response do not.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
We have a solid pipeline of partnership announcements and new features rolling out in the next six months.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
Entrepreneurship isn’t a solo sport (despite what profiles of famous founders might imply) or a team sport (like the popular saying says), I believe it is a community sport – where the whole town is there on a Friday night rooting for the home team like it was where I grew up in rural Indiana
RapidSOS would not exist without the collaboration with thousands of public safety agencies, tech and telecom leaders (200+ tech partners), and a support ecosystem of investors and advisors (many of whom are based in NYC and all of whom had no business talking to this kid from rural Indiana) – and yet they did, and time and time again they’ve come together to tackle challenges and build RapidSOS
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
Jack Pritchard, the famous NYC firefighter known for his heroic saves across his 29-year career at FDNY. I’ve heard his legend from local firefighters and read about extraordinary saves. It would be an honor to meet someone who so unabashedly risked his own life to save others – across 29 years of service to us New Yorkers.
Why did you launch in New York?
When we spun out of grad school in 2015 we took a team vote of where do we want to go, we narrowed the list to four cities and NYC won.
It could not have been further from where I grew up in a rural farming community in Indiana, but I am so glad we ended up here.
From a team building and culture standpoint, the culture in NYC is one of hard work – so many young people move to NYC to make it – RapidSOS would not exist without the ~200 New Yorkers who work tirelessly to build this mission-critical platform
From a company-building standpoint – NYC brings this ecosystem of support, fellow startups, investors, experts, customers, and advisors – all often within walking distance of each other
What’s your favorite winter destination in and around the city?
I have a three-year-old – and the slight incline in Gantry State Park in LIC is just the right pace for him to get out the sled and make for a perfect morning of sledding and play in the last couple of snow storms we’ve had!
