Former Cary police officer launches startup for police departments
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Matthew Matos while a member of the Cary Police Department. Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Matos.
BeamRail, a public-safety startup founded by a former Cary police officer, has raised $700,000 in pre-seed funding to get off the ground.
- The startup is the maker of an AI-based platform that aims to reduce the amount of time police officers spend on administrative work.
Why it matters: The investment is the first local bet made by Shaper Capital, an investment firm led by Travis May, a serial entrepreneur who returned home to Cary from the Bay Area in 2020. Flex Capital is also part of the round.
- May, who previously founded and led the data-focused companies LiveRamp and Datavant, started Shaper in 2023 and has invested in several companies trying to make it easier for different industries to manage the growing amount of data they collect.
Driving the news: BeamRail is led by Matthew Matos, a former police officer who got the idea for the company while working in the Cary Police Department.
- He decided to leave the department last year to focus fully on the job after Shaper invested in the company.
Zoom in: BeamRail's AI platform is meant to make the mundane tasks of law enforcement less time-consuming. Currently, Matos said, police officers spend way too much time navigating a series of disconnected systems to file paperwork, do compliance, or conduct investigations.
- BeamRail brings all of a police department's data systems — including records management systems, emails, policy and personnel systems and communications platforms — under one roof.
- The startup has three employees with plans to hire a fourth, and shares resources with Shaper Capital.
What they're saying: "For the past 20 years, most of the innovation in public safety tech has been pushed towards field operations and investigations ... all the cool stuff, like drones and body cams and traffic cams," Matos told Axios.
- "But all the mundane tasks that desk officers are tackling all day — like a lieutenant spending most of their shift planning one event — could be done more quickly" under a unified platform.
The big picture: Matos' time as a police officer does not fit the typical path for more startup founders, but May told Axios that it is one of the reasons he invested in the company.
- "One of the really interesting opportunities here is I don't think [public safety] is the kind of business that a few 22-year-olds at Y Combinator in San Francisco are going to solve," May said.
- "I think this is the kind of industry where having firsthand knowledge of the actual pain points of officers is extremely valuable."
What's next: The pre-seed investment aims to keep BeamRail's small team of engineers together and pilot BeamRail's platform at law enforcement agencies.
- Already, the company is in conversations with multiple agencies in North Carolina, Matos said.