RapidSOS Announces its $85M Series C - Partnering to Build the Future of Emergency Response
A Message from Michael Martin - CEO of RapidSOS:
I’m excited to announce that Insight Partners, a leading global investment fund, has led RapidSOS’s Series C funding round, bringing RapidSOS’s total funding to $200 million.
This announcement builds on eight years of partnership with thousands of first responders to create the RapidSOS emergency response data platform. I’m filled with gratitude for their partnership, particularly as all of us reflect on their heroism during this unprecedented year for emergency response.
The funding further accelerates our work with Emergency Communication Centers, public safety software providers, and leading technology companies to ensure that our digital health, smart buildings, security systems, connected vehicles, and mobile applications work together in harmony with emergency systems to save lives.
The 911 Data Challenge
Technology has dramatically transformed our lives over the last 50 years, except for when we need it most. When our lives are on the line – during a car accident, heart attack, or home invasion – most of us rely on a 1960s analog 911 infrastructure.
The result is that in the middle of an emergency we need to find our phone, dial 911, and verbally explain our location and circumstance. Despite sometimes not even knowing the caller’s name, 911 telecommunicators do extraordinary work, every day, helping hundreds of millions of people each year. But, today, data exists that can help save lives.
RapidSOS was founded in 2012 after our personal experiences with the 911 data challenge. Today, our team of current and former first responders and leading technologists are united around a shared mission of transforming emergency response.
A Partnership Approach
RapidSOS would be nothing more than a vision without the incredible partnership of 911 to build the RapidSOS Platform over the past eight years. Their partnership inspired collaboration with every major public safety software provider and leading technology companies to build an ecosystem of safety, security, and health.
Today, over 400M connected devices are connected to the RapidSOS Platform, including smartphones, wearables, connected vehicle and building platforms, home security systems, and popular apps and services.
Life-saving data from these devices is accessible at no cost to over 5,200 public safety agencies worldwide, covering 92% of the U.S. population. In 2020, the RapidSOS Platform supported over 150 million emergencies, or approximately 400,000 per day.
With the support of Insight Partners and existing investors, RapidSOS plans to accelerate its partnership with emergency services globally, supporting their life-saving work with critical data from hundreds of millions of devices.
Series C Funding: Where We’re Going Next
This past year put a spotlight on the incredible work of our first responders. The need for critical, life-saving data was never more apparent than in 2020 when the world faced unprecedented emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and domestic threats like the Christmas Day Nashville bombing.
Yet building the future of emergency response is too important a goal to go at alone. We learned early on that this would take a partner approach — by ensuring that data is available throughout the public safety technology ecosystem and every major software system.
To succeed in the next leg of our journey, we’re collaborating with organizations such as the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, and Direct Relief, to grow the Emergency Health Profile, a simple and free way for anyone to share their health data with 911. We’re also working with leading technology companies and thousands of public safety agencies to accelerate the connectivity between health and 911.
Internationally, our team is expanding. We’re working closely with Emergency Communications Centers and local governments to implement RapidSOS systems abroad. Applying the same partner approach as in the United States – we are working to ensure that first responders globally have the right data, at the right place, at the right time.
Join Our Life-Saving Mission!
We started RapidSOS as a group of tech nerds with a vision for using technology for good. We’ve been fortunate through our partnerships to evolve into a community of first responders, leading public safety software providers, and global technology companies united in a vision for safer, stronger communities where technology and people work seamlessly together to save lives.
We welcome everyone to join in on this mission with us! If you’re interested in being a RapidSOS Ready partner, please get in touch. If you’d like to join our team, please see our open roles.
In gratitude for the extraordinary work of 911 and first responders,
Michael
Co-Founder, CEO at RapidSOS
