Emergency response is the backbone of public safety. And yet, it remains one of the most technologically underserved domains in American civil service. Every day, 911 professionals must navigate high-stakes, high-pressure situations—oftentimes equipped with little more than a phone line and a dispatch screen.
At General Catalyst, we believe in the transformative power of applied AI leveraged across our most critical sectors. This promise is especially urgent in industries like emergency services, where the stakes can be life-or-death and the line between triumph and tragedy can be crossed in seconds. That is why we’re proud to lead the $80M Series C in Prepared, the leading assistive AI platform for emergency response.
Prepared’s flagship platform is an end-to-end assistive AI toolbox that empowers emergency responders and improves the efficiency and effectiveness of public safety operators. From reducing the burden of high-volume non-emergency calls via a dynamic AI voice assistant to streamlining call-processing times with real-time AI guidance, Prepared frees up critical operational capacity. With its automated quality assurance functions, Prepared helps public safety agencies continually improve performance.
Engineering for Real Outcomes
The urgency of Prepared’s mission is reflected in its simplicity: ensure that every emergency gets the perfect response. For founder and CEO Michael Chime, the goal is to fundamentally retool this critical sector, delivering an AI-powered assistant that enables human operators to function more effectively and at greater scale.
In our work across critical sectors like healthcare, defense, and public safety, we’ve learned that the mission must always be the north star. At Prepared, this clarity of purpose shows up in everything they do, building with one goal in mind: empowering the responders on the other end of the line during the worst moments of someone’s life.
This is real technology making a real impact in high-stakes environments. In just a few years, Prepared has already delivered for more than 1,000 public safety agencies, handling over 10 million calls and helping nearly 100 million people. From Las Vegas to Nashville, hundreds of thousands of public safety operators use Prepared’s system to answer the call when citizens need help the most.
“Prepared is using applied AI in the real world, where the stakes are literally life and death. Equally important, they’re supporting 911 operators who help citizens in their most difficult moments. The mission aligns closely with our work in sectors like healthcare and defense, and we’re excited to help the team continue to rapidly scale into what we believe will be a defining platform in public safety technology." –Mark Crane
Built Alongside First Responders
From our earliest conversations, it was clear that Prepared wasn’t just developing a great product with a critical function—they were building hand-in-glove with their customers, the first responders handling crisis situations. Michael and his team don’t just pitch software—they embed with public safety agencies to co-develop solutions with the very people they set out to help.
This conviction stems from Michael’s purposeful leadership. Even as he was raising this latest funding round, he never sacrificed customer visits and board presentations to prospective agencies. We see his combination of customer empathy, hustle, and technical acumen as special, positioning Prepared to become a leader in public safety assistive AI.
“Any 911 call could be someone’s worst moment. At Prepared, our mission is to help ensure every emergency, every worst moment, gets a perfect response. To create that world requires bold action grounded in commitment to our vision, executed by a world-class team with the resources it needs to succeed. This round is a testament to those ideas and a statement of our intent to aggressively pursue them.” –Michael Chime
Stepping Up When It Matters
Prepared is now at an inflection point. The technology works. The customers are engaged. The model scales. The charge now is to reach more agencies, more cities, and more lives—delivering at scale on the fundamental promise to help improve emergency outcomes.
This is a company building with purpose, deploying AI where it matters most, and expanding what’s possible in public safety. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Michael and his team as they step into their next chapter.
