October 16, 2024 Portfolio

ForceMetrics: A Data-Driven Approach to Public Safety

ForceMetrics’ core belief is that “safety starts with understanding.” Their mission is to help police, sheriffs, and other first responders (especially the dispatchers who support them) make better data-driven decisions in emergency situations by providing rapid situational awareness. In doing so, they both help law enforcement protect communities and lives of police and other first responders doing dangerous jobs to keep the rest of us safe. 

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce our Series A investment in ForceMetrics and the beginning of our partnership with CEO Andre McGregor, CTO Jason Truppi, and co-founders Shane McGregor and Chris Kersulic. It’s a remarkable team that has both substantial technology and law enforcement experience. This is an investment in Public Safety, which is an important segment in our National Security investment theme.

ForceMetrics has built a next generation safety search engine and data analysis tool, specifically for first responders. Powered by a sophisticated data analytics platform, ForceMetrics aggregates the huge corpus of information stored in systems such as RMS (Records Management System), CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch) and other public safety/behavioral databases into one easily searchable source of truth. Imagine a first responder arriving at a 911 call with only a person’s name or vehicle number. Using Forcemetrics, an officer can learn of any history of prior incidents, if this was a repeat report for domestic violence, and any known weapons possession or mental health issues. The product saves valuable time on critical tasks in emergency situations and allows first responders to assess safety issues instantly in potentially dangerous scenarios.

Andre’s backstory makes him uniquely well suited to take on the challenge of building and evangelizing new technology for police departments. After Brown University and working as an IT Director at Cardinal Health, he was recruited by the FBI. He graduated from Quantico and spent 6 years at the FBI as a Special Agent on Cyber-Intelligence and Counter Terrorism before returning to the tech ecosystem as CISO at Tanium and Namely. In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, Andre knew he wanted to make a substantial contribution to public safety. He partnered with Jason, who is a repeat founder and CTO who also spent 6 years as an FBI Special Agent and Andre’s partner. Andre rounded out the founding team to include Shane, a Brown and Harvard computer scientist who was head of business intelligence at ScanTron and Chris, a retired NJ police officer turned American Airlines pilot. Here’s a big shout out to our friend, Promise Phelon, at Growth Warrior Ventures, who introduced us. She’s a longtime friend, former CEO, and committed investor. 

ForceMetrics is a huge opportunity to equip our police departments with intuitive, easy to use, yet powerful data tooling. Through our diligence, it became abundantly clear that the strong product advantage coupled with fast deployments garnered high product adoption. A ForceMetrics customer cited that one of their detectives went from spending 17 hours searching through data for information on someone involved in a homicide, to finding the answer on ForceMetrics within 7 seconds. This was further exemplified in daily usage for upwards of 75% of all users at an agency and regional network effects for data-sharing between cities/counties. From city managers to county sheriffs, leaders personally vouched for ForceMetrics. 

A purpose-built “Perplexity for Law Enforcement” is a critical force multiplier for an industry under-hired in sworn-in cops. What’s more, ForceMetrics’ high quality, foundational data layer is a common base of information between dispatchers, first responders, beat cops, real-time crime center (RTCC), and detectives that allows multiple parts of police organizations to share data and collaborate efficiently to solve crime.

Public Safety is a complicated landscape for a venture investment, but we live in a complicated world. Law enforcement is a high-risk profession. Without the right information, police could respond to a situation with overwhelming force beyond what is required. At the same time, those sworn to protect us are frequently called into confrontations with people with bad intentions. Finding ways to bring context to situations to potentially avoid escalation is a hard problem, but our job is to find founders who are solving hard problems. 

Our first responders deserve the best technology we can make in order to do their jobs and to make these dangerous jobs safer. We believe that ForceMetrics can substantially improve both public safety *and* police safety, and are excited to contribute to the mission.
To learn more, visit ForceMetrics.com.

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Founder & Managing Partner

Greg Sands

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Nicole Seah