By Nicole Mistretta – Data Reporter

March 06, 2024, 04:49pm EST

A veteran-owned Dayton startup plans to leverage a successful seed funding round to further develop its first responder-focused technology, thanks to an angel investment network. The platform aims to transcribe emergency radio transmissions and 911 calls to ensure timelier and more accurate lifesaving responses.

Smart Response Technologies (SRT) recently announced the completion of its seed round, raising a total of $1.55 million from a group of strategic investors. This brings the company’s total amount raised since its founding in 2022, to $2.55M, including self-funded investments.

This latest funding round was led by The Angel Roundtable in Johnson City, Tennessee, with participation from Broadstreet Angels in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cowtown Angels in Ft. Worth, Texas; and the Entrepreneurs’ Center Angels in Dayton, among others.

Smart Response Technologies said the investment round underscores the confidence in SRT’s innovative approach to transforming emergency call centers nationwide and positive impact on the public safety sector with its patented product: Delphini. The cloud-based AI SaaS platform increases first responder communications effectiveness by 55% and helps to minimize stress and burnout on the job.

“I am incredibly grateful for the trust and support shown by our investors,” said Roger Mann, CEO, Smart Response Technologies. “This funding will be instrumental in accelerating our mission to ensure communities have fast, accurate, and coordinated responses in emergency situations. It will also enhance our capabilities to deliver an even greater product and service to our customers.”

Developed in cooperation with the Air Force Research Lab, Delphini provides emergency call takers and dispatchers with real-time voice-to-text transcriptions in a simplified dashboard.

The customizable keyword highlight function combines with spatially separated audio to increase comprehension by 70% and decrease the chance of missing critical information while monitoring multiple radio channels at once. With the enhanced AI, the transcription model can highlight “predictor” words that provide early warnings for a potential greater problem, such as an active shooter event, large-scale fire or pursuit of armed and dangerous people.

Tony Lettich, lead investor at The Angel Roundtable, said Smart Response Technology’s Delphini is revolutionizing the industry by benefiting communities and saving lives.

“As an investor, I appreciate that their technology contributes socially as well as technologically,” Lettich said. “It is an affordable solution to a communication clarity challenge that emergency call centers have had for years. Plus, this technology has tremendous potential for collaborations with other companies so I’m excited to watch SRT expand their R&D and product offerings in the years to come.”

SRT supports command and control centers, corrections facilities, event management, and courthouse, corporate, and campus security. Delphini is currently used by police and fire departments and county 911 Emergency Communications Centers nationwide.  

About The Angel Roundtable

The Angel Roundtable is a select network of successful entrepreneurs, investors, and other community and business leaders in the NE Tennessee/SW Virginia/Western NC region who provide investment capital, strategic advice and mentoring to late seed and early-stage companies to help them achieve market leadership.

The organization identifies high potential investments from entrepreneurs and supports their efforts to build and grow successful companies to achieve venture returns for its capital investments through a professional, collaborative network.