This past year put a spotlight on the importance of faster and more effective emergency response.
That's something that RapidSOS has been working on for the past eight years. The company, which built a platform to make it easier for first response teams to do their jobs, just banked $85 million to scale its technology.
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.
RapidSOS aims to transform emergency response and disaster management by connecting emergency data from digital health, smart buildings, security, connected vehicles, and app companies with emergency responders. RapidSOS provides their software free for 911 centers and works with connected device makers and technology companies to embed their technology into their emergency calling and SOS features.
The company's Series C funding round was led by global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. The investment brings RapidSOS’s total funding to $200 million.
“2020 reminded all of us of the heroic work that first responders do in our most challenging moments,” said Michael Martin, founder and CEO of RapidSOS in a statement. “We spent the past eight years building the RapidSOS emergency response data platform in partnership with thousands of first responders—collaborating with leading technology companies to provide the right data, at the right place, at the right time to save lives across over 150 million emergencies annually.”
Data from the RapidSOS platform was used in over 150 million emergencies during 2020, or on average, more than 400,000 per day. In some cases, RapidSOS' technology became the critical link between citizens and first responders when traditional voice 911 circuits went down in major disasters or attacks.
Through the platform, RapidSOS provides data that supports over 4,800 emergency communications centers across the U.S., covering 92% of the population.
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RapidSOS currently links more than 350 million connected devices to emergency services and first responders. These devices, recognized as RapidSOS ready, transmit real-time location, health and medical information, connected building and alarm data and more in an emergency.
For example, the RapidSOS platform connects crash impact and occupant data from the following sources with 911 and first responders in an emergency: connected vehicles, critical health and medical information from medical profiles, wearables and devices, and connected building/alarm, address, sensor and multimedia.
The medical ID feature on an iPhone also enables people to share medical information with 911. In collaboration with the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, and Direct Relief, RapidSOS launched the Emergency Health Profile, a simple and free way for anyone to share their health data with 911.
“Insight has a history of backing category-defining companies, and RapidSOS has all the makings of one in the emergency response space,” said Nikitas Koutoupes, managing director at Insight Partners. “We are excited to have our team of software ScaleUp and platform experts help drive RapidSOS’s mission.”