With reviews of crime charges rising, safety groups understaffed, and false alarms overwhelming conventional techniques, the necessity for smarter, extra dependable safety has by no means been extra pressing. Stepping as much as meet this demand, Hakimo, a Menlo Park-based AI safety startup, has introduced a $10.5 million Collection A funding spherical to supercharge its mission of remodeling bodily safety by autonomous, AI-powered monitoring.
Led by Vertex Ventures and Zigg Capital, with extra backing from RXR Arden Digital Ventures, Defy.vc, and Gokul Rajaram, the most recent spherical brings Hakimo’s whole funding to $20.5 million.
Meet the AI Operator: A Human-Like Autonomous Safety Agent
Hakimo has formally launched the AI Operator, a first-of-its-kind autonomous safety agent that may monitor cameras, detect intrusions, reply to incidents, and even situation verbal warnings—similar to a human guard. However not like people, it by no means will get drained, by no means misses a body, and reacts inside seconds.
This isn’t your customary movement detection software program. On the core of the AI Operator is a robust mix of laptop imaginative and prescient and generative AI, enabling it to not solely see but in addition perceive and reply to complicated eventualities described in pure language. Whether or not it is figuring out an individual loitering close to a restricted space or detecting tailgating at an entry level, Hakimo’s AI is constructed to interpret and act on safety occasions in actual time.
And when incidents escalate, Hakimo’s human-in-the-loop system ensures that educated safety professionals step in to deal with vital threats—making a seamless synergy between machine intelligence and human judgment.
From Stanford Analysis to Actual-World Affect
Hakimo was based in 2020 by Sam Joseph and Sagar Honnungar, two Stanford-trained AI researchers who noticed a chance to use the most recent developments in machine studying to a stagnating trade. Impressed by falling {hardware} prices, widespread surveillance digital camera deployment, and breakthroughs in laptop imaginative and prescient, they constructed a staff to rethink bodily safety from the bottom up.
The end result? A platform that integrates straight with present ONVIF-compliant safety techniques, requires no expensive {hardware} upgrades, and may be deployed throughout a number of websites in days—not months.
Why Now?
Conventional safety approaches are more and more unsustainable. Guards are costly, tough to rent, and sometimes unable to supply constant protection. Alarm monitoring providers are affected by false positives, inflicting delays or full lack of police response. Hakimo’s answer arrives at a time when companies are demanding real-time, dependable, and reasonably priced safety.
By combining AI pace with human reliability, Hakimo delivers a compelling various. For patrons like Kia Santa Maria, the shift was quick. “We bought a drastic discount in trespassing proper after deploying Hakimo,” stated Rodrigo Duran, the dealership’s Basic Supervisor. “I now sleep higher at night time with the peace of thoughts supplied by Hakimo’s AI agent.”
Scaling Throughout Industries
Hakimo isn’t only for high-security services. Its platform is already trusted by greater than 100 clients, together with Fortune 500 firms, automotive dealerships, building websites, company places of work, and self-storage services. The system has monitored over 5 million hours of footage and, in 2024 alone, prevented hundreds of safety incidents, assisted regulation enforcement in arrests, and even saved lives.
From tailgating detection (an often-overlooked bodily safety risk) to digital camera well being monitoring and automatic alarm triage, Hakimo gives actionable insights that conventional techniques merely cannot match. Its software program not solely detects threats however prioritizes them utilizing True Alarm Likelihood scores—dramatically lowering false positives and operator fatigue.
A Platform Designed for the Future
Hakimo’s platform is engineered to evolve with its clients. The system can monitor a number of websites concurrently, combine with software program like ServiceNow, Slack, and even cybersecurity SIEM instruments, providing a unified interface that bridges the hole between bodily and digital safety workflows.
It’s a drive multiplier for any enterprise seeking to minimize prices with out compromising security. In reality, clients report annual financial savings of as much as $125,000 when in comparison with conventional guard-based safety—and with median response occasions of simply six seconds, it is simple to see why.
Traders See a Class-Defining Alternative
“Hakimo is bringing ground-up technological innovation to the big however antiquated bodily safety trade,” stated Piyush Kharbanda, Basic Accomplice at Vertex Ventures. “By coupling cutting-edge imaginative and prescient AI algorithms with the reliability of humans-in-the-loop, Hakimo delivers a 10x higher service at a fraction of the price.”
For Ryan Orley, Managing Accomplice at Zigg Capital, the funding was private. “I grew to become a Hakimo buyer earlier than our agency’s funding. After finding out the safety monitoring ecosystem, our staff concluded that Hakimo’s answer is extra sturdy and affords higher worth than every other expertise we encountered.”
The Highway Forward
With recent funding and rising momentum, Hakimo is poised to guide a metamorphosis in how organizations method bodily safety. Its mission is formidable: to make safety proactive, clever, and seamless—eliminating threats earlier than they escalate.
“The safety trade has lengthy been reactive and inefficient,” stated CEO Sam Joseph. “At Hakimo, we’re not simply bettering it—we’re reinventing it.”
As threats develop extra complicated and budgets tighten, the necessity for AI-powered, autonomous safety brokers like Hakimo’s AI Operator is turning into not only a aggressive benefit—however a necessity.
