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A company that claims its tech can “ revolutionize ” emergency calls has invoke $ 27 million in a Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz .
The company , Prepared , enable 911 dispatchers to get a caller ’s real - meter GPS location if their phone supports it . Via Prepared , dispatchers can also receive and reply to textual matter and effigy , and — on iPhones with Apple’sEmergency SOSLive Video feature — respond a video call .
Prepared co - beginner and CEO Michael Chime claims that the platform can give operator worthful context they would n’t otherwise have .
“ The finish of our engineering science is to reduce the burden of each item-by-item call so that hand brake response can move quicker , ” Chime told TechCrunch . “ If we can save even a few seconds on a give way 911 call , we desire to do that . ”
across the country , a number of 911 centers are landline - bound , clamber to locate callers , and ca n’t processSMSor photos . That ’s despite a two - decennary - old effort , Next Generation 911 ( NG911 ) , to modernise the more than 5,500 emergency call centers in the U.S.
NG911 is net - based , and equal to of get multimedia system and more precise company info . However , deployments have only attain about 56.2 % of the U.S.,accordingto consulting firm Frost & Sullivan .
Launched by Chime , Dylan Gleicher , and Neal Soni in 2019 , Prepared ab initio focused on a unmarried type of pinch response : shoal shooting . The tierce , who raise up near the sites of annihilating school day shooting , including Sandy Hook Elementary , dropped out of Yale together to build a public safety app for schoolhouse administrators .
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A class in , Chime , Gleicher , and Soni realise there was a large customer segment — 911 call centers — that could profit from Prepared ’s tech . So they pivot the fellowship .
Today , Prepared offers a World Wide Web - based platform that shows dispatchers a running transcript of call . It uses AI to pull out possible items of importance , like addresses and descriptions of emergencies , even translate texts for dispatchers where necessary .
Prepared recently establish a peter that lets starter chat with a Spanish speaker using an AI - generate vocalism . Prepared transcribes and translates the dispatcher ’s talking to , and then translate the translation out loud over the phone ; Chime claims that this can reduce the need to conference with a third - party translator , which is the typical procedure with non - English caller .
“ With a growing non - English speaking population , peculiarly in larger cities , this has been a high - priority request from agencies , ” he added , “ which otherwise depend on language translators that can sometimes take several minutes to get together a call after a request . ”
Minutes shave off an emergency response could make a departure . Accordingto U.S. regulators , K of lives could be saved each year by trim 911 response times by just a minute .
But AI transformation and Prepared ’s other AI - powered feature also get along with risks . AI oftengets summaries unseasonable . And it ’s been obtain to transliterate speech communication from some utterer more accurately than others . One recentstudyshowed that speech realisation systems from leading technical school troupe were twice as probable to wrong transliterate audio recording from calamitous speakers liken to white speakers .
Chime take note that Prepared ’s AI feature film are optional — the fellowship ’s picture , GPS location , and texting capabilities are detached for 911 centers . But he also debate that , on the whole , AI can help oneself process dispatcher shout faster and more accurately .
“ We have pioneered the use of AI in public condom to synthesize data point and make it actionable , ” he sound out . “ Prepared ’s summarizer allows dispatcher to read short AI - generated summaries of incidents rather than listen to minute of call audio or reading prolonged notes . And we conceive that our translation feature will prove crucial in enhancing accessibility for Spanish speakers while at the same time meliorate reception times for Spanish - speak calls . ”
Prepared , which has deal with stuffy to 1,000 public safety authority across 49 state , plans to put the immediate payment from the Series B toward product R&D and go - to - mart crusade . Prepared will also abuse up hiring , with the end of adding 20 staffers to its 50 - mortal , New York - based work force by the last of the year .
“ We ’ve only just tapped the airfoil when it come to the potential of unlock critical citizen data , ” Chime say . “ We ’re move toward a world where Prepared as a program connects and optimizes the end - to - ending work flow from the 2nd a call derive in to when a subject area responder is on scene . ”
First Round Capital , M13 , and unrevealed angel investors also participated in Prepared ’s Series B. It brings the company ’s sum nurture to $ 57 million .
