Hakimo introduced at the moment it has secured $10.5 million in Collection A funding to develop its autonomous safety monitoring platform. The Menlo Park-based AI safety startup’s spherical was led by Vertex Ventures and Zigg Capital, with participation from RXR Arden Digital Ventures and current buyers Defy.vc and Gokul Rajaram, bringing the corporate’s complete funding to $20.5 million.
The corporate’s flagship product, AI Operator — an autonomous safety agent that displays current safety programs, detects threats in real-time, and executes response protocols with minimal human intervention — arrives because the bodily safety trade struggles with staffing shortages, rising prices, and false alarm fatigue.
“Rising prices and the extreme scarcity of high quality safety guards are driving this shift,” defined Sam Joseph, Hakimo’s co-founder and CEO, in an unique interview with VentureBeat. “Firms save roughly $125,000 per 12 months relative to a guard, so switching to Hakimo is a no brainer to clients.”
AI safety brokers that detect any risk describable in phrases
In contrast to typical safety monitoring providers, Hakimo combines laptop imaginative and prescient with generative AI to create a system that may detect any anomaly or risk that may be described in phrases.
“Hakimo’s AI Operator repeatedly ingests reside video feeds from current safety cameras and different sensors akin to alarm programs and door sensors,” Joseph stated. “Our AI Operator is educated to establish anomalies and threats—akin to unauthorized personnel, tailgating, loitering, intrusion into restricted zones, or uncommon behaviors.”
When the system detects a possible risk, it causes via pre-programmed response protocols, points real-time audio warnings via on-site audio system, and escalates to human operators solely when essential. This multi-layered method permits for complete safety protection at a fraction of the price of conventional guard providers.
The system’s capability to work with current {hardware} serves as one other differentiator. “Firms can deploy Hakimo in simply minutes, immediately integrating with their current cameras and {hardware}—no new infrastructure required,” Joseph defined.
How 24/7 AI monitoring outperforms conventional safety guards
Hakimo’s progress addresses vital challenges dealing with conventional safety approaches, together with police departments declining to answer unverified alarms and a labor disaster within the manned guarding trade.
“A guard bodily can’t be in any respect locations always, particularly at locations like campuses and enormous warehouses and even automotive dealerships,” Joseph stated. “Hakimo, alternatively, displays cameras giving full 100% protection so long as there are sufficient cameras current on the website.”
The CEO highlighted extra benefits: “Guards must take necessary breaks throughout their shifts whereas Hakimo’s AI Operator by no means takes breaks. Legal responsibility danger: Guards have a excessive danger of getting injured on the job, which causes an enormous legal responsibility danger. Hakimo, with no on-site human presence, has no such danger by any means.”
The corporate has tripled its buyer base over the previous 12 months, now serving greater than 100 shoppers throughout industries together with multifamily flats, automotive dealerships, building websites, and Fortune 500 enterprises. In 2024 alone, Hakimo’s expertise prevented hundreds of safety incidents, assisted regulation enforcement in a number of arrests, and even saved a life.
“Our AI Operator detected an individual collapsing on-site in the course of the night time with nobody round. It was then escalated to our human operators who instantly dispatched emergency providers (911), finally saving the person’s life,” Joseph defined.
Why buyers are betting hundreds of thousands on AI-powered bodily safety
The funding in Hakimo displays rising recognition that bodily safety requires technological reinvention as conventional approaches like guard providers and alarm monitoring more and more seem antiquated and cost-prohibitive.
With the brand new funding, Joseph plans to “develop and improve our AI platform capabilities and scale operations to new markets and industries.” The corporate targets companies throughout a number of sectors that want environment friendly bodily safety options.
“Any enterprise needing safety for bodily belongings or individuals advantages considerably, particularly property administration, automotive dealerships, building websites, and campuses,” Joseph stated, citing examples together with a automotive dealership that eradicated month-to-month break-ins, a high-rise house constructing that saved almost 1,000,000 {dollars} on safety guard spending, and a scholar housing property that noticed incidents drop by 90% whereas lowering safety prices to a 3rd of conventional bills.
Creating the common platform for clever video monitoring
Hakimo was based in early 2020 by Sam Joseph and Sagar Honnungar, each Stanford-trained AI consultants with backgrounds in enterprise SaaS. They recognized converging traits: exploding digital camera deployments, falling {hardware} prices, and speedy advances in laptop imaginative and prescient.
Their imaginative and prescient extends past present functions: “In 5 years, Hakimo goals to grow to be the common platform for clever video monitoring and understanding, successfully creating and main a brand new class inside the bodily safety trade,” Joseph stated.
As AI continues to advance, Hakimo’s method might provide a preview of how clever programs will more and more increase — and in some circumstances exchange — human staff in safety and past.
“Our imaginative and prescient is that Hakimo would be the platform for every kind of video monitoring,” Joseph stated. “Anybody ought to be capable to join any digital camera to Hakimo and say ‘look out for X and do Y while you see X taking place.’”
