ZeroEyes: Stopping school shootings forever

(5 minutes)

• This AI startup plans to stop school shootings forever

• 80% of their employees are Navy SEALs or military veterans.

• They‘be raised a total of $105.4M from investors like the U.S. air force and Octave Ventures

So what’s the startup and who are the founders behind it? Here’s the story of ZeroEyes 📈:

💭Did you know that there have been over 200 reported school shootings in the US in 2023 alone?

This is when Mike and a bunch of his Navy SEAL & veteran friends decided to come together and solve this issue with ZeroEyes.

ZeroEyes was founded in 2018 by Mike Lahiff, Sam Alaimo, Tim Sulzer, Rob Hubert and Dustin Brooks with the vision to stop school shootings forever.

ZeroEyes uses AI to detect weapons and send alerts to prevent and stop active shooter threats.

Their software analyzes over 3 billion images each day from security video feeds and lets authorities know in seconds if a firearm is detected.

The startup currently has over 400 clients in 42 states, and there’ve been over a dozen arrests so far as a result of their software.

Early Hustle 🐣

Mike Lahiff, CEO of ZeroEyes, grew up in Glennside Pennsylvania and had always been a hustler.

His earliest memory of hustling: Selling Airheads at school in 4th grade. On the way to school there was a minimart that always sold them and Mike made an agreement with the owner.

Mike had gotten the guy to front him a box of airheads for about a nickel a piece and said he’d pay him by the end of the week.

He started selling them at school for a quarter a piece and started prioritizing his candy selling business over school.

Mike was raking in $100-200 a week in change and went to the bank every Friday to swap out the change for cash so he could pay the guy back.💸

He continued selling candy for that whole school year before getting caught by his principal and was almost kicked out…

Becoming a Navy SEAL 🎖️

The first time Mike even thought about becoming a Navy SEAL was in fifth grade when he was punished to stay off TV and read a book.

His mom took him to Barnes & Noble to pick something out when he found this military book with a guy painted in camouflage sitting in a jungle, with a huge Navy SEAL trident on it.🔱

The book was about the first SEALs in Vietnam and Mike thought these guys were badass. He wanted to be one of them.

He found more books on Navy SEALs and even found the movie “Navy SEALs” with Charlie Sheen which he and his brother were obsessed with.

Fast forward to college, Mike was a straight knucklehead focusing only on partying. He flunked his first semester, finishing with a 0.0 GPA.

He then left and came home to work 3 jobs: 

• A full time Construction job

• Night shifts at a Pizza Shop 🍕 

• Bouncer on the weekends

The college life hadn’t treated him well so he dropped out and focused on work.

After working for 2 years and making some money, he wanted to get his shit together and got into a different college where he locked in for the next 2 years & had a great time.

Then 9/11 happened…

This is what triggered him to finally drop everything and join the Navy… 🪖

He wanted to be a SEAL but it was a long process to get there.

The process even got held up when they did background checks on him because of how many times he’d been arrested as a kid from underage drinking or fights.

Mike ended up going to a bootcamp for the Navy and worked for 2 years before he proved himself to become a SEAL.

All he did during those 2 years was work and train every single day.

Founding ZeroEyes 👁️ 

Mike had gotten married pretty early 👫 - around 21 years old. He even had 3 kids.

Since all he’d been doing was working and training every single day, his marriage was going to shit and he never saw his kids at all.

He decided to make a change and applied to a bunch of business schools. Mike got into Wharton and graduated with an MBA.🎓

As soon as he finished school he started a search fund with a friend from Wharton who was also a military veteran. The fund ended up not doing too week and ultimately failed.

This is when Mike and his friend had started seeing an uprise in school shootings in the US and realised no one was really taking action.

The problem😣:  There were way too many school shootings in the US and no one was even trying to stop them.

The solution😏: An AI gun detection system…

Mike gathered a bunch of his veteran friends and convinced them all to quit their jobs to help him found ZeroEyes.

ZeroEyes was the first AI startup to use AI for gun detection to stop school shootings.🔫

Stats 📊

The startup raised their first venture round of $2.5M in 2020 from Nitesh Banta.

Their most recent raised happened on 26th of June 2024 when ZeroEyes raised a $53.3M round led by Sorenson Capital💰.

Over the last 20 years, over 292k students have experienced gun violence at schools.

ZeroEyes reported that their revenue had increase 300% YoY in 2023 and plans to continue growing rapidly📈.

ZeroEyes however isnt the only startup working on an AI gun detection system.

Brett Adcock, founder of Figure AI, also realised this was a huge problem in the US and started Cover AI - funding it all himself.

Cover AI is another AI gun detection software startup and plans on accelerating the stopping of school shootings in the US.

Before you go 👋 

Thank you for reading.

Remember, if you know anyone who might like this newsletter, sharing is caring.