Carbyne Secures Series B1 After 350% Growth

Carbyne closed a $25 million Series B1 after the company watched its annual recurring revenue grow 350 percent last year.

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The funding round was led by Hanaco Ventures and ELSTED Capital Partners, with participation from former CIA Director General David Petraeus and all existing investors including Founders Fund, FinTLV and others.

The company will use the new proceeds to help build out its cloud-native emergency services platform, which helps deliver real-time information, such as location, between citizens, emergency centers and other state agencies. The platform enables live video, images, chat, voice and more, with no app being required to download.

“Carbyne tries to change how we connect with emergency services,” said founder and CEO Amir Elichai, who founded the company six years ago after being robbed on a beach and realizing a need for better emergency communications.

Room to move

The challenges of last year provided a new proving ground for Carbyne as emergency services were in demand, Elichai said. During the pandemic the company was deploying one new customer project every 10 days, and its technology now covers more than 400 million citizens and is used in 24 states, he said.

Elichai said the pandemic’s highlighting vulnerabilities of traditional emergency services in terms of communications and data-sharing helped push the U.S. House to approve a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, which included $12 billion in funding for next-generation 911 deployments.

Carbyne expects similar growth this year, Elichai said, adding that the company could even play a role in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

The company monetizes through both contracting with government and law enforcement agencies, as well as its newer B2B integration allowing for better emergency services through a company’s private app.

In addition to its own growth, the company also signed two new strategic partnerships in the final quarter of 2020 with CentralSquare and Global Medical Response, which could extend its reach to nearly 90 percent of the U.S. market, Elichai said.

The robust data engine Carbyne provides can prove valuable to many partners, said Lior Prosor, general partner of Hanaco Ventures

“We can definitely help partners,” Prosor said. “Theoretically, tools that connect people, time and location are valuable. We can definitely help.”

The future

While the company has no predetermined exit, it sees a place for disruptive companies in the public sector, where legacy companies such as Motorola and Tyler Technologies still have significant market share, Elichai siad.

Prosor added there could be many potential suitors in the future, citing Tesla hinting recently at adding 911 features to its vehicles. He said insurance companies also potentially could be interested down the line.

“Both paths are viable,” Prosor said.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.