Nov. 2 — Prepared, a public safety tech firm that aims to make its mark with 911 livestreaming, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by new investor and venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz.
The new capital comes as the company, which offers a free service called Prepared Live, continues to build out its paid offerings. Prepared is adding features such as enabling dispatchers to send live video, photo, text and GPS data directly to responders in the field.
The company also is touting the ability of its platform to automatically translate texts from more than 140 languages. That reflects a broader trend not only in public safety but in other areas of government technology, especially as artificial intelligence and machine learning gain ground.
As CEO Michael Chime told Government Technology, the company will continue to focus on "putting more data in front" of emergency dispatchers and responders. More specifically, the new capital will go toward hiring for engineering, marketing, sales and product jobs.
He said Prepared is working with at least 800 cities across the country, with a presence in 48 states. That means the company's technology covers some 75 million people by Prepared's estimate.
The company launched in 2019 and debuted its platform in 2021.
It raised $9.8 million in a seed round in early 2022. The company has raised a total of $30 million.
The newest funding included returning investors M13 — which says it has taken part in the seed and Series A rounds of 15 $1 billion companies — and Gradient Ventures, a Google operation focused on artificial intelligence.
Andreessen, meanwhile, has invested in more than 40 AI-focused companies.
"We've already used software to optimize countless tasks across countless industries, and it's imperative that first-class software also be built to support one of the most important pieces of our public safety infrastructure," said David Ulevitch, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and leader of the firm's American Dynamism practice, in a statement.
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