Cory Siskind started her career in Mexico City in physical security and risk management, a market not known for technological innovation.
“What I saw is that there’s this whole interesting industry that provides these services for companies that want to enter emerging markets,” she said. “But it’s mostly consulting – there’s no technology and it’s really antiquated.”
Protecting company assets, whether it is people or infrastructure, is challenging. Crime heat maps aren’t complete enough, and communication lag is high for on-the-ground sources.
“This industry is too stodgy,” Siskind said. “Must. Be. Disrupted.”
After a management consulting gig at Booz Allen Hamilton, she entered a double Master’s program at Harvard and MIT, where in 2016 she gathered a handful of computer engineers and data scientists to start developing Base Operations.
“It all snowballed from there.”
The D.C.-based startup, which launched in spring 2018, helps security professionals protect a company’s workers and provide information to business travelers.
Base Operations aggregates data from crowdsourcing, social media, governments and collaborators that powers an app for employees and a dashboard for security personnel. It includes heat maps, safe routing and geofenced alerts, along with emergency check-ins and access to local crisis-response resources.
"This is a very real problem that companies face when they expand internationally, but they can’t not be a global company," Siskind said.
Base Operations tweaked its model in Mexico City before expanding to 11 more Latin American cities in just nine months. It’s now running paid pilots with energy firm Enel and a Fortune 50 insurance company, among a handful of other large clients.
“We’re starting in Latin America because the problem is the most acute,” Siskind said. “You have some really dangerous cities, but you also have really great opportunities for global business.”
For example, it ran an emergency drill replicating a 2013 earthquake, where it took a global company’s employees four days to get in touch with its top people.
“That can be really disruptive to business continuity, and it makes you divert all your resources into one region, which is problematic,” Siskind said. “But with Base Operations, people can check in really easily and communicate with their company, and we got a 50 percent response rate within 30 minutes and 80 percent in 24 hours.”
The company’s main focus is its enterprise platform, which uses a subscription model, but it also makes a free app that helps tourists and travelers avoid dangerous areas.
It recently completed the Techstars Social Impact Accelerator in Austin and raised $700,000 in pre-seed funding, with an eye toward expansion. In addition, Microsoft selected the startup for its MakeWhatsNext patent program, providing $50,000 worth of filing services.
With those resources in tow, Siskind said Base Operations will start adding African, Asian, European and U.S. cities by early 2020, along with adding to its team of six and signing more enterprise clients.
