Earlier this year, Abel's founder, Daniel Francis, was driving at 135 miles per hour on a highway in Oakland, California. The driver, a police officer, had a gun on his lap.
Francis had developed a habit of riding along with police officers in the name of research for his company, which develops AI to fill out police reports. Usually, the rides were uneventful. But on that day, the officer pulled someone over to search their car. The person panicked and pressed the gas, starting to drive recklessly. Francis and the officer set off in pursuit. Recalling the experience, Francis said, "I was so excited. I thought, finally, this is happening! Finally, it's not just a stolen car call where we go and fill out a report."
After 40 minutes of chasing through the narrow streets of Oakland Hills, the person’s car ran out of gas. The officer was clearly sweating, and Francis's heart was racing. But in between the near-miss crashes and highway speeding, Francis found time to think about AI. Specifically, how would AI write a police report for a car chase? He said, "It's one of the hardest reports to write. When you're writing a chase report, you have to list every street you pass and every turn you make. These reports are massive."
In his 20 police ride-alongs, Francis spent a lot of time thinking about how AI could help reduce police paperwork. His company, Abel, creates AI that uses body cam footage and call data to fill out police reports that would typically take a long time to complete. On Thursday, he announced that Abel had raised $5 million in seed funding, led by Day One Ventures, with participation from Long Journey Ventures and backed by Y Combinator as part of its 2024 summer class. Francis plans to use the funding to hire engineers and improve Abel’s AI.
You might recognize Francis’s name: When Musk was laying off thousands of Twitter employees in 2023, Francis pretended online to be a disgruntled Twitter engineer, which led to him actually being recruited as a Twitter engineer. (By the way, Francis said working for Musk was far more stressful than riding shotgun in a car chase. "If Elon yells at you, it’s terrifying," he laughed.)
Francis’s shift from social media to police technology was motivated by several unfortunate events. In 2022, Francis helped a close friend escape an abusive marriage, secretly moving her and her child to a new home in the dead of night. "It was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve done in years," he recalled. "Helping my friend escape and run under the cover of darkness."
But then her husband found her new address. "He would come by, knock on the door, and make threats," Francis said. "It happened multiple times, and each time, it took the Oakland Police Department about 45 minutes to respond."
Francis was shocked at how long it took the police to arrive. He interviewed officers, many of whom told him about the staff shortages in their departments. He also learned that writing a police report could take 45 minutes, causing officers to spend a third of their time writing reports or other documents. Francis said, "That number changed my life. It's a crazy use of time."
He became obsessed with how new AI models could reduce the time spent writing reports. He created an early Abel demo using body cam footage filmed at home, where his friends acted out small crimes like littering. "I've made so many demo videos now that I know every little crime that won't involve bystanders," he said.
Now, Abel is being used by the Richmond, California, police department (and Francis has access to real body cam footage). He said officers there have changed their work schedule around Abel: instead of pulling over to spend 40 minutes writing a report, they can save it for the end of the day and just edit the first draft that Abel has already prepared.
Abel isn’t the only AI working on police reports. Competitors range from Axon (makers of tasers and body cams) with its Draft One product, to smaller startups like Policereports.ai.
Francis hopes Abel will simplify the paperwork tasks for police officers. He said, "If officers aren't overwhelmed, if they're not putting out fires, it's better for everyone. If they can really show up and do the job they signed up for."
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