Three years ago, Flare launched and began shipping its flagship product, a smart bracelet designed to get the wearer out of potentially dangerous situations and prevent sexual assaults.
The Boston-based startup recently announced that it was being acquired by Smart Alert Holdings, a company that specializes in safety communications and personal safety devices. Flare did not disclose the terms of the deal.
Flare co-founders Sara Dickhaus de Zarraga and Quinn Fitzgerald launched Flare on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic, announcing a $3 million seed round led by Lerer Hippeau in February 2020. The co-founders were classmates at Harvard Business School and have been open about their experiences as survivors of sexual assault. They founded Flare to give people a tool to get out of a potentially dangerous situation without escalating it.
One of the things de Zarraga is most proud of is the way Flare expanded people’s definition of safety to include not just emergencies, but moments where people started to feel uncomfortable about a situation, she said. She added Flare gave people a way to act on those feelings early before anything bad happened.
“We helped people earlier in the moment and we helped people when things were an emergency as well and really left that mark on the industry of redefining the way people think about safety,” de Zarraga said.
The company created a bracelet that features a discrete button that activates one of several ways to get help to the wearer. The wearer can choose which option they prefer in Flare’s app. de Zarraga said these options include receiving a fake phone call, messaging and sharing their location with friends and family and sending a distress message and location information to emergency responders.
“Really the app is a launching off point to provide lots of different services and ways to get help to more and more people. The features can really be expanded much farther beyond that so you can use your bracelet to get the help that you need,” de Zarraga said.
Fitzgerald said the company grew to offer over 30 different bracelet styles and sold over 30,000 units. She said that Flare has provided a combined 1.5 million days of protection to customers and managed over 150,000 button presses on the bracelet.
“We were able to grow monthly during that initial time period and after because we stuck to our guns,” Fitzgerald said.
Before the pandemic, de Zarraga said, they did a lot of work on college campuses and partnered with student organizations. When college students went home during the pandemic, de Zarraga said Flare began focusing on digital ecommerce and saw engagement from a broader customer base.
They found that their new customers included people who wanted to feel safe in the workplace, especially those interacting with the public; people moving to a new city or living in a dangerous area; and those that felt alone and isolated during the pandemic.
de Zarraga said Flare was interested in working with Smart Alert because of its focus on the personal safety industry.
“They’re a holding company that’s looking to really become the leader in the personal safety industry and build out a portfolio of companies that will help meet those personal safety needs underneath them,” de Zarraga said.
Flare and Lowell-based invisaWear Technologies LLC are Smart Alert’s portfolio companies.
“When the opportunity came up, it just seemed like it made a lot of sense that we could grow a lot better together,” de Zarraga said.
Fitzgerald said the biggest change for Flare is that she and de Zarraga are moving on from the company. de Zarraga said Smart Alert will maintain the Flare brand and invest in its growth.
The co-founders said they don’t know what their next steps will be yet, but they plan to focus on innovative and mission-driven projects, similar to their work on Flare.
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