Announcing BootstrapLabs’ investment in Hayden AI Technologies, Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, Oct 13, 2020 – As cities across the globe announce their commitments to becoming smart and safe, technologies enabling this future emerge.  

Today, BootstrapLabs announced our latest investment – Hayden AI Technologies, Inc, a company that empowers cities on the path to becoming Smart Cities through their unique AI platform.

The funding round also includes investors Autotech Ventures, Tsingyuan Ventures and others, and will enable Hayden AI to accelerate their product development, helping cities eliminate traffic fatalities and improve efficiency.

Founded by Chris Carson, Bo Shen, Vaibhav Ghadiok, and Michael Byrne, Hayden AI revolutionizes urban mobility, providing cities a scalable and more efficient way to bring safe, healthy, and equitable mobility to the public.  Using edge computing and AI to process real time data from mobile cameras, the platform is able to create vast and detailed situational awareness for cities at a fraction of their current fixed camera cost.  Coupled with a knowledge and reasoning engine that fully automates the detection of any kind of traffic violation, the solution eliminates the need for human review, inherently filtering out bias and inefficiencies.

“We envision a world with safe roadways, efficient transportation, and fair and equitable mobility for all.  Leveraging our expertise in the autonomous vehicle space, we’ve created technology that does just that,” said Chris Carson, Co-Founder & CEO of Hayden AI.  “This funding enables us to connect additional smart cities and move forward with our vision.”

“Hayden’s unique ability to use computer vision and AI to extract data and knowledge from the physical environment of cities is the key for Smart Cities to become a reality,” said Nicolai Wadstrom, Founder and General Partner of BootstrapLabs. “Hayden’s platform is making cities smarter, their traffic flows safer, faster and more efficient.”

Hayden AI also announced that Stuart McKee is joining the executive team as COO, and Anthony Foxx has joined the company’s Board of Directors.

Stuart McKee served for more than 15 years as Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer of U.S. State and Local Government, delivering technologies that advance state and local agencies’ ability to serve citizens.  Turning his attention to bringing Hayden AI to market, McKee sees a clear path, “Centralized, secure data is key to creating solutions that work broadly for public safety and urban mobility.  Hayden AI has the pieces in place ensuring the accuracy, scale and privacy necessary for universal adoption of this trusted platform.” 

Anthony Foxx served as the 17th US Secretary of Transportation, where he embraced technology by pushing forward new rules governing the commercial use of drones, blueprinted the most comprehensive national policy on autonomous vehicles in the world, and launched the Department’s first, and the Administration’s most successful, Smart City Challenge, engaging more than 70 cities to develop their own strategies to incorporate new technologies into their transportation networks.

“I look forward to joining Hayden AI to continue to tackle urban mobility challenges,” said Foxx.  “Their solution not only scales a city’s ability to create safer, more efficient traffic flows, but also addresses the very real issues of fair and just mobility.”

“Both Stuart’s experience bringing enterprise level technologies to state and local agencies, and Anthony’s expertise managing transportation policy, technology, and public-private partnerships will be invaluable as we continue to develop our solutions and expand our reach,” said Carson.

About Hayden AI

California-based Hayden AI Technologies, Inc. has developed an artificial intelligence-powered data collection platform for smart and safe cities to make their traffic flow faster and far more efficiently. The company is partnering with the world’s most innovative cities to deploy its vision-based mobile solution in a city’s fleet of vehicles to collect real-time data for the enforcement of traffic laws and other data services. 

To learn more about Hayden AI, visit www.hayden.ai

About BootstrapLabs

Established in 2008, BootstrapLabs is a leading early-stage Venture Capital firm based in San Francisco and focused on Applied Artificial Intelligence.

BootstrapLabs invests in mission-driven founders who want to shape a better future by applying artificial intelligence to solve some of the world’s most important and valuable opportunities in sectors such as Mobility, Enterprise Productivity, Cybersecurity, Intelligent Computing, Health, Energy, and FinTech, among others. We are often the first institutional capital and act as a lead investor at the early stages, with follow-on capital for the later stages. 

Founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, BootstrapLabs has built a large community of Applied AI experts, founders, and executives to support its portfolio companies, and strives to be the most helpful and strategic investor, from product-market fit advisory to recruiting, business development, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising.