“My whole life has been preparing me for this moment,” Ben Sanders said when asked about why he launched his emergency response startup Hyper. The company announced Monday a $6.3 million seed round led by Eniac Ventures, as well as an official emergence from stealth.
As a child, he so wanted to become a police officer that he had his mother sew yellow stripes on his navy sweatpants. He wore that with an officer’s rain hat for an entire year. As he grew up, he worked at the intersection of tech and government and once ran for federal office.
Around a year ago, he read a news article about how his hometown was looking to use AI to reduce the wait time for emergency services. Sanders, who once launched an AI voice for drive-through restaurants, suddenly had an idea. Though he didn’t think AI was quite ready to help with 911 calls, he felt this was a space for innovation, especially after realizing that most calls made to the emergency line are not considered emergency calls at all.
Sanders teamed up with his friend Damian McCabe. The duo officially launched Hyper on Monday, offering an AI voice company that can handle some 911 calls. Sanders, who is CEO, said the product is to deal with the non-emergency calls that take time away from those critical calls that determine the “difference between life and death.” McCabe is the company’s CPO.
