Abel Launches to Address Police Shortages and Keep Communities Safe

Abel, the police technology company that turns body camera footage into AI-powered reports, today announces its public launch. The company is building the future of policing by automating paperwork for patrol officers. There are 900,000 police officers in the country, and officers spend on average 1/3 of their time writing reports. Abel aims to reduce this to zero, effectively increasing available police hours by 50%. Abel’s mission is to restore citizens’ trust in law enforcement agencies. The company also announces $5 million in seed funding, led by Day One Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Long Journey Ventures and a group of founders.

The company was founded by Daniel Francis (he was part of Elon’s transition team at Twitter), who started the company after seeing a friend go through a domestic violence situation in which her husband repeatedly violated a restraining order and the police took 45 minutes to respond.

“Seeing my friend go through a violent situation and feeling how scary it is when the police are simply not available changed my view of the importance of the police to society. Improving policing became my number one interest, and discovering the statistic that police spend a third of their time writing reports made the path forward clear to me.” said Francisco.

After selling his previous company, Francis took a position as an intern at the Richmond Police Department in California to research police reporting practices. Francis built Abel’s founding team of executives and advisors, which includes veterans from Axon, the Department of Homeland Security, Palo Alto Networks, OpenAI, DC Metro Police, and a former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Serious operational difficulties

Since 2020, law enforcement agencies across the country have faced severe operational difficulties. More than 80% of agencies report staffing shortages, with a 30% increase in employee layoffs and a 25% drop in applicants compared to pre-2020 levels. Meanwhile, police are taking longer to respond to emergency calls. For example, in New Orleans, the average police response time nearly tripled, increasing from 51 minutes in 2019 to 146 minutes the following year. In cities across the country, response times have increased 20-30% since 2020, and rural response times may be even longer.

These longer response times are attributed to fewer officers available, larger geographic areas to cover, and limited resources within police departments. These issues lead to significant delays in emergency situations, often with lives at risk.

“Imagine San Francisco with 50% more police officers, it would be a very different city”explains Francisco.

No one becomes official to file paperwork

Abel was created to help police focus on the work that inspired them to become police officers. Using AI, Abel processes body camera footage and dispatch data, automatically generating reports that include the structured form fields that officers must complete and the narrative that describes the events that occurred. Reports are automatically entered into forms officers already use, adding no extra steps for patrol officers and requiring only a few minutes for agency administrative staff to set up.

“I’ve never seen a founder more customer-obsessed than Daniel,” said Masha Bucher, founder and general partner at Day One Ventures. “He is a special combination of exceptional technical skill with keen product intuition, creating a real AI use case that can transform communities, improve lives, and repair cities across our country. I’m excited to support a company solving one of America’s most pressing problems.”

“It’s not a nice to have, it’s a necessity”

“It gives you more time to do your main work. This allows the police to focus on what they are supposed to do, rather than filling out five documents that are essentially the same and can be filled out all at once,” adds Don DeLucca, former president of the IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police), Miami Beach police chief and member of Abel’s advisory board. He also mentions that today’s police officers grew up in a different world of technology and are eager to use these tools for good.

“Thanks to Abel, we can spend more time in the field and respond to more service calls, rather than being tied to a computer for 45 minutes just to file one report. I once completed five reports in less than an hour. Abel it allows us to do proactive work to prevent crime, so we can help more people and catch the bad guys,” said a Richmond Police Department officer.

New partnership announcement

Abel is also announcing a partnership with Mark43, a leading records management system (RMS) used by the US Secret Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency and major law enforcement agencies including Atlanta, Washington DC, Boston and Seattle. This partnership will help police departments across the country reduce administrative bottlenecks, allowing officers to spend less time on paperwork and more time solving crimes and keeping communities safe.

“I really like the police”

Another motivating factor for Francisco was his passion for police work itself. And this customer obsession is obvious. He mentions that fundraising was easy for him as he knows everything about it. “The product is clearly needed, it is an underserved and quite large market. These three factors make everything very easy.”

As Abel continues to expand, the company’s innovative approach to leveraging AI for public safety could serve as a model for law enforcement agencies across the country. By automating the most time-consuming aspects of police work, Abel is not only helping officers regain valuable hours, but also addressing some of the most pressing challenges in today’s policing landscape.