Each day, the nation’s 911 dispatch call center receives over 650K calls. The demands are high and the resources are limited. With only one police officer per 364 people in the US by 2021, police and law enforcement are perpetually grappling with the challenges of preventing, responding to, and investigating crime. One of the issues in crime fighting is the inherent limitations of physical presence. Police officers, despite their best efforts, cannot be everywhere all at once. When a crime happens, the response time is crucial, and often by the time an officer arrives on the scene, the situation has already unfolded.

Meanwhile, the public is often left in the dark with delayed or fragmented information about unfolding crime incidents and public safety issues. These are often relayed through traditional news outlets, and the lack of real-time information leaves citizens uninformed and ill-prepared to respond to potential threats. Additionally, a substantial number of crimes go unreported — for example, 59.1% of violent crimes and 67.5% of household property crimes went unreported in 2020. Whether due to fear, a sense of inconsequence, or a lack of faith in the system, underreporting further clouds our understanding of the crime landscape. Amidst these challenges, the communication gap between law enforcement and the public has loomed large. This gap not only hinders the possibility of collaborative crime prevention but can also erode the trust necessary for a safe community.

Citizen seeks to rectify this with a digital safety network that leverages real-time information on crimes to increase the public’s awareness of safety issues. The app provides real-time 911 alerts and allows users to contribute toward resolving situations by broadcasting live videos and sharing relevant updates. This kind of crowdsourced crime reporting is intended to foster transparency and fill the gap left by traditional news outlets, providing users with immediate, accurate information about safety issues in their surroundings. In a world where crime is a persistent problem, Citizen seeks to offer a transparent, crowd-sourced, approach to safety by integrating technology and community involvement.

Source: LinkedIn

Citizen was founded by Andrew Frame (CEO) Luis Samaniego, and JD Maresco in 2016. Frame, a high school dropout with a keen interest in computers, began his tech entrepreneurial journey at 15 years old where he created his first startup, an internet service provider. By the time he was 17, Frame moved to San Jose, joining Cisco in 1997. In this role, he was able to travel the world with the company, establishing systems in Korea and Australia as a support engineer. Frame's tech journey also included a brief period assisting Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker during Facebook's formative years, an experience that yielded significant returns from his company shares. In 2004, the next big step in his career was founding Ooma, a company that offered internet-based phone services.

A decade later, in 2016, Frame created SP0N, a startup technology incubator, with the objective of founding a company that was mission-oriented, consumer-based, mobile, network-driven, and unique. This venture led to the development of an app called Vigilante that promised to democratize the 911 system by sending alerts to those nearby when a crime is reported to 911. In October 2016, Vigilante was released on iOS. It was an instant hit. Along with a release video that went viral, within 48 hours, Vigilante was downloaded in all 50 states and dozens of countries around the world. However, the app faced controversy due to concerns about potential vigilantism, leading to its removal from the App Store a week after its launch. Critics feared that the app, along with its name, might encourage users to rush toward crime scenes or intervene in dangerous situations. In 2017, Vigilante rebranded to Citizen with the same core idea but with stronger guidance to “never approach a crime scene, interfere with an incident, or get in the way of a police”.

Active Incident Coverage

Citizen’s active incident coverage provides live updates on safety incidents as they unfold. Upon opening the app, users are brought to an interactive map of their nearby area with a line sweeping across the screen, reminiscent of a radar tracking system. Citizen captures information about crime from several resources including police scanners, public safety radio channels, verified public data from government agencies and local departments, and user reports. This wealth of information is organized and presented to users in a feed-like interface.

Furthermore, Citizen also enables users to broadcast live video from the scene of a fire, car wreck, crime, or other safety incident. To help ensure the accuracy and reliability of user-reported incidents, Citizen employs analysts to individually review and verify safety alerts.

Source: Citizen

Safety Alerts

The Citizen app acts as a safety network that sends alerts about nearby safety issues or incidents in real-time. These alerts are designed to be immediate and actionable and to provide users with the information they need to stay safe. Each alert includes the nature of the incident, its precise location, and advice on what to do if relevant. Safety alerts can also be customized to align with user needs and preferences. Users have the ability to choose what type of safety alerts they want to see as well as the radius. Together, the active incident coverage and safety alerts form the backbone of Citizen’s real-time safety network.

Source: Philly Mag

Citizen Protect

Citizen Protect is an on-demand, personalized, mobile protection subscription service that gives users 24/7 access to Citizen’s team of highly trained agents. Users can communicate with agents through text, audio, and video calls. Citizen agents come from a range of backgrounds including former 911 dispatchers, paramedics, social workers, and high-touch customer service representatives. All Citizen agents have completed basic emergency response training.

Citizen Protect agents can monitor where its users go, create alerts for designated emergency contacts and nearby Citizen users, guide users to a safe place, and send emergency responders to their exact location. Citizen Protect is not designed to simply be utilized in emergency situations, it's also there to give people peace of mind throughout their daily lives. Having an agent on-demand at all times is intended to give users a sense of security.

For example, if a user wants to go out on a walk at night, Protect Agents can stay connected with them and monitor them until they are ready to end their session. Citizen Protect also includes a “protect mode” that includes features such as “Shake for Agent”, where the user can simply shake their phone twice to be connected to an agent, and “Distress Detection”, which monitors the device of the users audio, which is designed to be used when the user is unable to talk.

Source: Citizen

Citizen Plus

Citizen Plus is Citizen’s mid-tier subscription service. Subscribers to Citizen Plus have access to live police and fire radio feeds, providing real-time communication between emergency responders on unfolding incidents. The service also allows for alert customization, where users can choose which types of alerts they want to receive, and set the distances for these alerts. Additionally, Plus unlocks the record of historical incidents beyond the 24-hour expiry which occurs with the free version of the app. Finally, Citizen Plus provides the ability to create multiple alert zones, such as homes or schools, and users can receive alerts for these specified areas, regardless of their current location.

Source: Citizen

Customer

Citizen is designed for a wide variety of users, as safety is a universal need. Its app is useful for anyone that wants real-time safety information and for people who have a heightened interest in personal and community safety. Citizen primarily targets residents in major cities, as the crime rates are typically higher in densely populated urban areas. The app is currently available in over 60 cities, including New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and Cleveland with further plans for expansion. Furthermore, Citizen also aims to appeal to vulnerable groups that may often avoid the police due to fear, past experiences, or cultural reasons.

Market Size

Citizen operates in the public safety and security market, an industry that also includes a variety of services and solutions such as surveillance systems, communication networks, disaster recovery solutions, medical services, and more. In 2023, the public safety market was worth $24.6. billion. It is expected to reach $65 billion over the following five years with an expected CAGR of 29.4% for the next six years. Factors driving this market growth include heightened security awareness, the necessity to replace outdated public safety infrastructure, and the integration of advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Nextdoor: Founded in 2008, Nextdoor is a social networking platform that allows people to connect with neighbors and people in nearby communities. On Nextdoor users are able to share information, buy and sell goods, and communicate about various local issues, such as neighborhood watch, community activities, local services recommendations, lost pets, and other community-related topics. Like Citizen, Nextdoor offers a platform with the ability to alert neighbors about safety concerns, crimes, or emergencies. However, Nextdoor focuses more on the social aspect aiming to help people build real-world connections with their neighbors. In 2023, Nextdoor was operating in over 11 countries and 305K neighborhoods around the globe. In the US, over 1 in 3 households were active on its platform. Nextdoor went public through a SPAC in 2021 and had a market cap of $1.2 billion in June 2023. It reported a revenue of $212.8 million and a net loss of $137.9 million in 2022.

Noonlight: Founded in 2013, Noonlight is a connected safety platform that offers on-demand emergency response services. Its central feature is a panic button that sends out a signal to connect with emergency services and share vital safety information, such as a user’s location, personal details, and health information instantaneously. Noonlight has integrations with several popular apps including Tinder and can also be paired up with wearable devices to detect falls or sudden health problems. In comparison to Citizen, Noonlight focuses more on individual safety rather than community-oriented safety. While Citizen provides real-time community alerts about local incidents, Noonlight emphasizes a direct connection to emergency services for personal health and safety crises. In 2022, Noonlight had over 3.5 million users and was acquired by Alarm.com.

Neighbors: Neighbors is an app developed by Ring and launched in 2018. Ring, a home security company owned by Amazon that provides a range of security products including smart doorbells, security cameras, and security systems, created Neighbors as a complementary service to its home security products. The app allows community members to share real-time safety information and local crime. Users can post safety concerns such as suspicious activity, crime, missing persons or pets, and even share footage from Ring security cameras. Neighbors differentiate itself by its integration with Ring's hardware ecosystem, encouraging the sharing of surveillance footage among users to enhance community safety. Its user base and financial performance are not publicly disclosed.

Citizen operates a freemium business model, offering both a free and subscription-based service to its users. Its core offering includes its “Active Incident Reporting” and “Safety Alerts” offerings, which are available to all users for free. These free offerings allow Citizen to reach a wide user base and build a community of engaged users to effectively create a safety network.

In 2020, Citizen introduced its premium subscription service, Citizen Premium (previously called Citizen Protect), which it touts as its flagship product suite. For $19.99 a month, subscribers to Citizen Premium get 24/7 access to Citizen’s agents that can act as digital bodyguards. In 2023, Citizen launched Citizen Plus, a subscription-based service that sits between Citizen’s free and Premium offerings. Available for $4.99 a month, Citizen Plus gives users access to expanded features including live access to police and fire radios, personalized alert customization, and more.

Citizen has been downloaded over 14 million times garnering over 10 million users. Citizen is operational in over 60 cities and counting, including major urban hubs such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Fransisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Over the lifetime of its app, Citizen has sent over 10 billion alerts to its users, reporting on approximately 6K incidents per day. From its launch to 2022, Citizen garnered around $30.3 million in sales.

In January 2023, Citizen laid off 33 employees, including at least 10 engineers.

In 2021, Citizen raised $73 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $133 million. Its investors include Greycoft, Goodwater Capital, 8VC, Sequoia Capital, Breyer Capital, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, RRE Ventures, and Slow Ventures.

In February 2023, Sequoia was reported to have resigned from Citizen’s board after declining to participate in further funding for the startup. It had previously been one of Citizen’s biggest backers, having led the company’s $12 million Series A in 2017.

Geographical Expansion

Citizen currently operates in 60 cities throughout the United States today. By expanding its operations into more cities within the US and potentially extending into other countries, Citizen may be able to increase its user base and further its defensibility through network effects. The value of the Citizen app increases for each user as the number of users grows. More users mean more eyes and ears in different locations, which can lead to faster and more accurate reports of real-time safety incidents. This should create a virtuous cycle with the addition of each market, where the increasing value of the app attracts more users, and the growing user base, in turn, enhances the value of the app.

Partnerships

Citizen's value proposition lies in its ability to provide real-time safety alerts to users, but this capability also has the potential to assist law enforcement, local government agencies, and other private security firms. By forming partnerships with these entities, Citizen can enhance its sources of information but also serve as a real-time data platform that could aid in quicker emergency response times, more effective deployment of first responders and resources, and improve public safety measures. For example, in an emergency situation, law enforcement could use the Citizen platform to disseminate critical information quickly to residents in the affected area. In return, the platform could provide law enforcement with valuable ground-level insights and potentially even live video feeds from the scene.

Predictive Policing through Data Analysis

Given Citizen’s extensive data on safety incidents, Citizen is in a unique position to perform advanced data analysis and possibly develop predictive policing capabilities. By analyzing trends in its data, Citizen could identify patterns in criminal activity, such as common times, locations, or methods, and share this information with law enforcement to aid in crime prevention. Furthermore, this data could be used to develop predictive models that forecast crime hotspots and high-risk times. This could lead to a more proactive approach to public safety, with users and law enforcement being able to prepare for or even prevent incidents before they happen.

Negative Publicity

Citizen has faced several instances of negative publicity. For example, when the app first launched as Vigilante and was subsequently banned from Apple's App Store because it was seen as encouraging people to rush towards violent situations. Another instance that gained significant attention was when Andrew Frame, the founder and CEO of Citizen put a $30K reward on the capture of a man who was incorrectly identified as a suspect in a crime. This action was not only denounced by law enforcement but also put the wrongfully accused individual at risk. Furthermore, the app's attempts to test a private security force drew heavy criticism and was perceived as a potential threat to the existing 911 system before the experiment was shut down.

Privacy Issues

The Citizen app's functionality involves the collection and distribution of sensitive information, including the real-time location of public safety incidents and potentially the users themselves. When users engage with the app, they expose their locations, which could potentially be misused or fall into the wrong hands. Additionally, the Protect service, which is a paid feature, offers on-demand Protect Agents who can monitor users' audio and video in certain situations. This level of access to users' personal data and the potential for its misuse could pose a significant privacy risk.

Citizen is a real-time safety app that provides users with updates on nearby incidents such as crimes and emergencies. The app sources information from various channels including police scanners, public safety radio channels, verified public data, and user reports. Users can also live-stream video from the scene of incidents. Citizen offers real-time safety alerts, which can be customized according to user preference. Its subscription services, Citizen Protect and Citizen Plus, offer additional features like 24/7 access to a team of trained safety agents, and real-time access to police and fire radio feeds. The goal of Citizen is to act as a personal safety network, providing users with timely and accurate information to help them stay safe.