Headquartered in a second-floor office above Main Street, the company launched its residential security system in the spring of 2019. Company founder and CEO Dave Selinger explained that very quickly after the residential program started, clients were asking what they could do for their businesses. So, last June they started working on their system for businesses.
The residential system uses three battery-powered cameras with loudspeakers and alarms built in to monitor the grounds. The cameras are wirelessly linked to a control device powered by artificial intelligence so it can separate a deer from a potential intruder. If something is amiss, the 24-7 center with “guards” is alerted so they can intervene. In about 90 percent of the situations, talking to the potential intruder scares them away. In the event the person does not leave, the local police are called.
Deep Sentinel has customers all over the country and has been Beta testing the program in businesses for several months before its public launch this week.
Selinger identified three key advances that were necessary for Deep Sentinel’s system to move into the business sector.
• The wireless capability for the cameras has been enhanced so the system can cover warehouses or parking lots with tens of thousands of square feet.
• More power options have been added including solar wall power and power over Ethernet in addition to the batteries.
• The AI capabilities are more robust. It’s gone from handling four cameras last summer to six in November and now is 20 or more. The AI hub still will be on site in the residence or the business to ensure speedy response by guards (for business, it’s guaranteed 10 seconds or less—also the target for residential response).
Selly loves to tell the story of how Deep Sentinel’s system has helped Andrew Lenz of Lenz Arts in Santa Cruz. He had issues with transients leaving garbage, human waste and needles on his porch. Once he installed the system last July, the guards intervene by asking people to leave the property. If they don’t comply, there’s a loud and unpleasant two-tone alarm. If that doesn’t do it, the police are called. Ninety percent of the time the guard’s intervention takes care of the issue.
“. We are intervening earlier in the lifecycle of a crime than anyone has ever seen with any other technology or security solution. Ever. No one has ever seen anything like this and so we've had to learn that when we're that early sometimes we're going to catch things, even before the crime is started, and that's actually where we have the biggest impact,” Selinger said in an interview last week.
Selinger pointed out that Deep Sentinel would have prevented the two home invasion burglaries that occurred in Pleasanton over the past few months as well as the rash of burglaries that plagued Ruby Hill over the holidays.
He related that a Pleasanton police officer was walking in a neighborhood with a resident who asked about various security systems. They stopped in front of a house with a Deep Sentinel system. Within 30 seconds, the homeowner opened the front door—after being notified by a guard that police officer was in front of her home.
“From a presentation perspective we've been making a really big effort to reach out to the local community. We have spent a lot of time with Ruby Hill. We're spending some time with Kottinger Ranch. We've been doing what we can to support the police department which is you know is, is wildly proactive in these instances. And now we're going to be able to protect the downtown, which if you actually look at the crime stats appears to be where the majority of these types of crimes are actually happening, “ he said.
Selly described the marketing as “surgical” such as meeting with Kottinger Ranch and Ruby Hill residents. The company doesn’t have the financial resources to match Ring, Simply Safe or ADT so they have been much more focused.
In addition to the launch of the business security system, Deep Sentinel also announced a venture capital investment by Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company offering insurance and financial services. The investment brings the total Series A funding to $24 million.
It will allow the company to continue to hire more people as well as expand to another office.
“We continue to be growing and we're continuing to hire more local people and we love the talent market and the community in Pleasanton. We love being here. It's such a neat place. Literally every time I have an interview with somebody who does not live in this area, they're like, ‘oh my gosh, I did not know this existed in the Bay Area.’”
