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 via 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 newest spherical brings Hakimo’s complete 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 difficulty verbal warnings—identical to a human guard. However in contrast to people, it by no means will get drained, by no means misses a body, and reacts inside seconds.
This isn’t your commonplace movement detection software program. On the core of the AI Operator is a strong mix of laptop imaginative and prescient and generative AI, enabling it to not solely see but in addition perceive and reply to advanced situations 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 skilled safety professionals step in to deal with essential threats—making a seamless synergy between machine intelligence and human judgment.
From Stanford Analysis to Actual-World Influence
Hakimo was based in 2020 by Sam Joseph and Sagar Honnungar, two Stanford-trained AI researchers who noticed a chance to use the newest 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 workforce to rethink bodily safety from the bottom up.
The consequence? A platform that integrates straight with current ONVIF-compliant safety techniques, requires no expensive {hardware} upgrades, and will 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 infrequently unable to offer constant protection. Alarm monitoring companies are tormented 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 purchasers like Kia Santa Maria, the shift was instant. “We received a drastic discount in trespassing proper after deploying Hakimo,” mentioned Rodrigo Duran, the dealership’s Common Supervisor. “I now sleep higher at night time with the peace of thoughts offered by Hakimo’s AI agent.”
Scaling Throughout Industries
Hakimo isn’t only for high-security amenities. Its platform is already trusted by greater than 100 prospects, together with Fortune 500 corporations, automotive dealerships, building websites, company places of work, and self-storage amenities. 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 menace) to digital camera well being monitoring and automatic alarm triage, Hakimo supplies actionable insights that conventional techniques merely cannot match. Its software program not solely detects threats however prioritizes them utilizing True Alarm Chance scores—dramatically decreasing false positives and operator fatigue.
A Platform Designed for the Future
Hakimo’s platform is engineered to evolve with its prospects. 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 trying to lower prices with out compromising security. The truth is, prospects report annual financial savings of as much as $125,000 when in comparison with conventional guard-based safety—and with median response instances of simply six seconds, it is easy to see why.
Buyers See a Class-Defining Alternative
“Hakimo is bringing ground-up technological innovation to the big however antiquated bodily safety trade,” mentioned Piyush Kharbanda, Common Companion 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 fee.”
For Ryan Orley, Managing Companion at Zigg Capital, the funding was private. “I turned a Hakimo buyer earlier than our agency’s funding. After finding out the safety monitoring ecosystem, our workforce concluded that Hakimo’s answer is extra strong and gives higher worth than every other expertise we encountered.”
The Highway Forward
With contemporary funding and rising momentum, Hakimo is poised to guide a change in how organizations method bodily safety. Its mission is bold: to make safety proactive, clever, and seamless—eliminating threats earlier than they escalate.
“The safety trade has lengthy been reactive and inefficient,” mentioned CEO Sam Joseph. “At Hakimo, we’re not simply enhancing it—we’re reinventing it.”
As threats develop extra advanced and budgets tighten, the necessity for AI-powered, autonomous safety brokers like Hakimo’s AI Operator is changing into not only a aggressive benefit—however a necessity.