After winning $70,000 from the Harvard’s President Challenge in May, Mark43—formerly known as Nucleik—has secured another $1.95 million in seed funding. Led by Spark Capital and General Catalyst, the round will help the law enforcement information management startup expand its software’s reach nationwide.
The startup was founded by Harvard College graduates Scott Crouch, Florian Mayr, and Matthew Polega during an engineering design seminar at Harvard. As part of the class, the trio was tasked with tracking the success of a new policing model used by a team of Massachusetts State Troopers.
What they discovered is that there could be an easier way to reduce paperwork for law enforcement officials. Through their software, officers are given instantaneous access to accurate and organized data, enabling them to more effectively tackle gang violence, murders, and violent crime. For the last eight months, the Special Projects Team of the Massachusetts State Police in Springfield has been using the technology, minimizing the time spent on office paperwork by 90 percent.
When Harvard President Drew Faust met with Mark43 in May at the President’s Challenge Demo Day, she acknowledged she “was struck by their commitment to pursuing an idea and applying what they had learned in the classroom to improve the lives of others.” What she saw was “a tool that will help law enforcement professionals better serve and protect communities across the country.”
Spark Capital General Partner Alex Finkelstein acknowledged the software’s transformative power, as well, saying in a statement:
Mark43 detected a serious problem with internal operations in law enforcement departments across the country and using a combination of mobile and web technology created a way to provide an effective platform that will save time, money, and more importantly, lives. More than ever, defense technology needs flexible solutions. We are excited to see this real-time platform in action and truly believe in the ripple effect this will have in local communities.
Lowercase Capital, SV Angel, Launchpad LA, Rough Draft Ventures, and Harvard Business School Professor Tom Eisenmann, among others, have also invested in Mark43’s seed round. Called a “game-changer” by Mark43 CEO Scott Crouch, the platform’s popularity could stem from just that.
“We believe that the law enforcement software market will see many of the same secular trends we have witnessed in other sectors, such as the move to a cloud-based SaaS offering, the opportunity for new distribution models driven by direct relationships between software vendors and end users, as well as the ability to build new tools for mobile workers on mobile platforms,” said General Catalyst Investor Nitesh Banta in a statement. “We see a big opportunity for Mark43, which is sitting in the center of these key trends.”
