edgetrace

What do they actually do

edgetrace provides an AI‑enhanced video‑intelligence platform (web UI + API) that indexes live and archived camera feeds and lets teams search by plain‑language description, images, or audio. Results return short clips plus structured metadata such as camera, time, coordinates, OCR text, and license plates. The public site shows a live demo and a real‑time “detection leaderboard” to query detected events EdgeTrace homepage demo.

Customers can deploy on‑premises or in edgetrace’s cloud and route results into incident workflows via Slack, SMS, email, or exports EdgeTrace homepage. The product is in early commercial/beta with pilot‑stage public‑safety and enterprise security users, while the team focuses on robustness for low‑quality video and low‑latency search at scale YC company page Work at a Startup listing.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Law enforcement investigators: They spend hours manually scanning footage across many cameras; backlogs slow cases. edgetrace indexes video so they can search across feeds and export evidence quickly edgetrace demo YC page.
• Real‑time public‑safety and operations centers: Operators need fast, accurate detections with fewer false alerts; current tools are noisy and slow. edgetrace emphasizes low‑latency live search and alerting to speed response edgetrace homepage.
• Transit and traffic managers: Monitoring hundreds of cameras—often low‑quality or at night—makes it hard to find incidents or vehicles across sites. edgetrace prioritizes robustness on poor video and scalable indexing to make cross‑camera search practical work listing.
• Retail loss‑prevention and store security: Pulling clips across stores and linking people/vehicles is manual and error‑prone. edgetrace’s search and metadata (OCR, plates, locations) aims to cut time and surface matching clips faster edgetrace demo.
• Enterprise/facilities security teams: They require on‑prem options, defensible audit trails, and integrations into incident workflows for compliance and chain‑of‑custody. edgetrace highlights on‑prem, export/integration capabilities, and auditability edgetrace homepage work listing.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Use YC/founder networks to secure pilots with local law‑enforcement and transit ops, running hands‑on trials (on‑prem or cloud) with custom tuning and evidence‑export workflows; convert wins into referenceable case studies EdgeTrace demo YC company page.
• First 50: Stand up a small field‑sales motion with a repeatable pilot playbook (scoping, pricing/SLA, install template) and target similar agencies by region/use case; support with conference demos and direct outreach to procurement EdgeTrace homepage Work at a Startup listing.
• First 100: Add channel partnerships (VMS integrators, camera vendors, regional security resellers) and get onto government procurement frameworks; launch a productized cloud tier for smaller sites to increase velocity and leverage ROI case studies to shorten cycles EdgeTrace homepage Work at a Startup listing.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

The closest TAM is global video‑analytics software and services, estimated at about USD 12.7B in 2024 and projected to ~USD 37.8B by 2030 Grand View Research. The broader video‑surveillance market (~USD 73.8B in 2024) signals a large installed camera base for analytics to sit on Grand View Research — surveillance.

Bottom-up calculation:

Initial wedge: if 5,000 public‑safety, transit, and enterprise sites adopt at an average of ~$100k/year for software and support, that’s ~$500M; at 10,000 sites it’s ~$1B. Expanding globally and into retail increases the reachable TAM beyond this wedge.

Assumptions:

• Average annual contract value of ~$100k/site (software + support) for mission‑critical deployments.
• 5,000–10,000 immediately reachable sites across public safety, transit, and enterprise security in early target geographies.
• TAM refers to software/services spend; hardware (cameras/storage) excluded.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• BriefCam: Forensic video analytics and rapid video review/search across CCTV; known for investigation workflows in law enforcement and cities BriefCam.
• Genetec Security Center (KiwiVision): Major VMS with built‑in analytics (KiwiVision) and broad public‑safety/enterprise deployments; strong incumbent with deep integrations Genetec.
• Avigilon (Motorola Solutions): Video management and analytics including appearance search and LPR, widely used in enterprise and municipal security Avigilon.
• Verkada: Cloud‑first cameras with AI‑powered people/vehicle search and a growing footprint in enterprise/public sector; bundled hardware + software offering Verkada.
• Camio: AI video search platform and API that layers on existing cameras to enable natural‑language/description‑based search and alerts Camio.