Venture Capital: Pitching mapping software for security
December 10, 2004
By John Cook
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter

Entrepreneurs usually don't get the chance to pitch their products to congressional leaders or White House staff members. But those were the potential customers that Prepared Response Chief Executive Jim Finnell encountered this week as he traveled to Washington, D.C., to tout his company's software.

Finnell's 4-year-old Seattle company is receiving the attention because its Rapid Responder mapping software could help strengthen homeland security efforts.

"It was exciting," Finnell said of the meetings in D.C. "Our technology is fun to show because we can do a presentation in 10 minutes and it is very entertaining. ... They see its relevancy."

The software is designed to provide emergency personnel with real time access to building floor plans, hazardous-material locations and other critical information during fires, floods, terrorist acts or other disasters.

Prepared Response has already mapped more than 1,000 buildings and public venues, including airport terminals, hospitals, treatment facilities and about every high school in Washington state. The maps and floor plans reside on a laptop computer where firefighters or police officers access the information on the go.

Government agencies aren't the only ones interested.

Last week, the company landed $2.5 million from Benaroya Co., local angel investors and an undisclosed strategic partner. The second round of funding, which brings total financing to $5.2 million, will be used to ramp up sales and marketing efforts to corporate customers. The 25-person company plans to hire about a half dozen new employees in the next three months as part of that effort.

In addition to the financing, Prepared Response is finalizing contracts worth about $1.5 million with large school districts in California, Missouri and Washington. The school districts, which include Spokane Public Schools, received grant money from the U.S. Education Department to address security issues.

Joe Madsen, director of safety and risk management at Spokane Public Schools, said he wanted to expand the partnership with Prepared Response because the software worked so well during a shooting at Lewis and Clark High School last year. In that situation, a 16-year-old student was shot by police after firing a handgun in a classroom. The software assisted with the evacuation of about 2,000 students.

It also helped police and school officials pinpoint the chemistry laboratory, where the boy was, and locate chemicals and gas valves in the room.

With the grant money, the school district is now working with Prepared Response to map 35 elementary schools over the next two years, Madsen said.

"It is not just a neat toy. It really is a facilitator of communication and pre-planning... ," Madsen said. "It really does help to establish collaboration between agencies, and that is critical to saving lives."

Schools have been the biggest market for Prepared Response's software, with the company receiving a $3.3 million contract from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to map about 450 high schools in the state. The mapping and data entry project should be completed by the end of this month, with training occurring through February, Finnell said.

It was the infamous Columbine High School tragedy that led to the creation of the technology. Shortly after the shootings in April 1999, a group from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department traveled to Columbine to study what went wrong. They concluded that emergency personnel needed better access to information and a more coordinated approach for dealing with disasters.

While schools remain a key market, Finnell said, the company is expanding beyond educational institutions because of the opportunities that have arisen after Sept. 11.

"Schools is where Prepared Response has had its roots, but there is a lot of interest in states and regions to database other critical infrastructure for homeland security," the 44-year-old executive said.

Selling to government agencies can be a challenge. After all, the sales cycles are long, complex and subject to the whims of politicians. That's part of the reason the company, which had previously forecast sales of $8 million this year, is on track to do only $2.5 million in sales. Finnell said a large contract to map all of the state's elementary and middle schools did not materialize, although the project will be up for consideration next year.

With those types of bottlenecks, Finnell said, the recent funding will be used to go after corporate customers. As one of the first commercial deployments, Prepared Response is mapping more than 1.2 million square feet of office space at the Benaroya Co.'s Metropolitan Park and Park Place buildings in Seattle. It is also in discussions with a New York City financial company.

The mapping software could be a useful tool for businesses that want to set up better procedures related to security or disaster planning at manufacturing plants, retail stores or skyscrapers, he said. If there is a fire or a broken water pipe, Finnell said, emergency personnel could easily resolve problems because they have access to utility shut-offs, building floor plans and photographs.

"Responders are notoriously good at being contemporaneous and thinking on their feet," said Finnell, a former vice president of operations at American Medical Response.

"What can happen, though, is that situations can unwrap so fast you can't make decisions quick enough. Or, if you are making decisions, you are doing it on little or no information. The goal is to get them all the information they need to make smart decisions quickly."