A company that claims its technology will “revolutionize” emergency calling has raised $27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
A company called Prepared allows 911 dispatchers to get a caller's real-time GPS location if the phone supports it. Through Prepared, dispatchers can receive and reply to texts and images, and even answer video calls on iPhones with Apple's Emergency SOS Live Video feature.
Prepared co-founder and CEO Michael Chime argues that the platform gives operators valuable context they wouldn't get otherwise.
“The goal of our technology is to reduce the burden on each individual call so emergency response can happen faster,” Chime told TechCrunch. “If we can save even a few seconds on a 911 call, we want to do that.”
Nationwide, many 911 centers are tied to landlines, struggle to locate callers and can't process text messages or photos. This is despite Next Generation 911 (NG911), a 20-year-old initiative to modernize the nation's more than 5,500 emergency call centers.
NG911 is Internet-based and can receive multimedia and more accurate caller information, but its adoption has reached only about 56.2 percent of the U.S., according to consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
Founded in 2019 by Chaim, Dylan Gleicher, and Neil Soni, Prepared initially focused on one type of emergency response: school shootings. Having grown up near the sites of devastating school shootings, including Sandy Hook Elementary School, the trio dropped out of Yale together to develop a public safety app for school administrators.
After a year, Chaim, Gleicher and Soni realized there was a larger customer segment that could benefit from Prepared's technology: 911 call centers. So they pivoted the company.
Prepared now offers a web-based platform that shows dispatchers a real-time transcript of the call, and uses AI to extract potentially important details like the address or a description of the emergency, and translates the text for the dispatcher if needed.
Prepared recently released a tool that lets dispatchers chat with Spanish speakers using AI-generated audio. Prepared transcribes and translates the dispatcher's speech, then reads the translated audio over the phone. Chime claims this alleviates the need for meetings with third-party translators that are typically required when callers call in a language other than English.
“This has become a high priority request from agencies due to the growing non-English speaking population, especially in larger cities,” he added. “Otherwise, they would have to rely on language translators, who can take minutes to join the call after being requested.”
Prepared's 911 dispatcher dashboard. Image courtesy of Prepared
Shaving a few minutes off an emergency response can make a world of difference: US regulators say reducing 911 response times by just one minute could save thousands of lives each year.
But AI translation and Prepared's other AI-powered features don't come without risks. AI often gets summarization wrong. It's also been found to transcribe some speakers more accurately than others. A recent study found that speech recognition systems from major tech companies are twice as likely to mistranscribe black speakers compared to white speakers.
Chaim points out that Prepared's AI features are optional — the company's video, GPS location and text messaging features are free to 911 centers — but he also argues that overall, AI helps dispatchers process calls faster and more accurately.
“We have been pioneering the use of AI in public safety to synthesize data and make it actionable,” he said. “Prepared's summarization feature allows dispatchers to read short, AI-generated incident summaries rather than listening to minutes of call audio or reading lengthy notes. We also believe our translation feature will be invaluable in improving response times for calls in Spanish, while increasing accessibility for Spanish speakers.”
Prepared, which has contracts with nearly 1,000 public safety agencies across 49 states, plans to use the Series B funding for product research, development and market launch. The company also plans to ramp up hiring, aiming to add 20 employees to its New York-based workforce of 50 by the end of the year.
“We've only just scratched the surface when it comes to the potential of unlocking critical citizen data,” Chaim said. “We're moving towards a world where Prepared as a platform connects and optimizes end-to-end workflows, from the moment a call is received to when rescuers arrive on scene.”
First Round Capital, M13 and an undisclosed angel investor also participated in Prepared's Series B, bringing the company's total funding to $57 million.