first-responders
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DetectaChem puts the first answer in your pocket
A chemical reaction, a phone camera, a report. DetectaChem’s bet is that field testing becomes more useful when the result travels as easily as the kit.
NEP Services bets on the people who pick up
From direct-mail fundraising to union software, NEP Services has built a business around a stubborn problem: getting people to answer when their organization needs them.
Critical Response Group Built the Map for the Moment Everyone Starts Shouting
CRG took a battlefield habit - one shared picture, one shared vocabulary - and carried it into American schools. The hard part was never drawing the map. It was making sure the right map appeared in the right hands when communications began to fray.
The Prison-Doc Shop That Made 40 Years of Payroll Selling Stories Nobody Else Would Touch
For four decades, Rasha and Stephanie Drachkovitch have run toward the subjects most producers avoid - prisons, night shifts, grief - and turned them into shows that networks keep ordering.
The Sandwich Chain Where Every Sub Helps Buy a Fire Truck
Two firefighter brothers turned steamed subs and a fire-station theme into a 1,300-store chain - and a charity that has bought more than $100 million in gear for first responders.
Bulzi, Inc.
Bulzi, Inc. (styled Bulzī, pronounced 'bulls-eye') is a dual-use technology company that uses edge-AI and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to deliver situational awareness, security, and safety solutions. Originally built to measure out-of-home advertising audiences by passively detecting nearby mobile devices, Bulzi adapted its RF-sensing platform for defense and public-safety missions with roughly $2M in SBIR funding from the U.S. Air Force and Army. Its products span passive C5ISR sensing (SAFER), base access control (z-BASE), and medical-grade vital-signs monitoring (BioSCOUT), serving warfighters and first responders alongside commercial advertising customers.
Shift Health
Shift Health is a San Francisco-based healthtech startup building a Human+AI behavioral care platform that keeps people supported between clinical visits. Its AI coach delivers 24/7, in-the-moment guidance across mental, physical, and behavioral health, while care teams set the protocols, tone, and clinical guardrails. Available as a consumer app ('Shift - AI Mental Health') and as an enterprise platform aimed at health systems, employers, and high-demand professions like first responders and veterans, the company frames good outcomes as coming from 'what happens between visits.'
Somewear Labs
Somewear Labs builds satellite-powered hardware and a software-defined network that keep defense, government, and emergency-response teams connected when conventional networks fail. Its pocket-sized devices automatically route mission data across mesh radios and satellite links, integrate with tactical systems like ATAK, and serve users from helicopter paramedics and wildland firefighters to U.S. special operators.
Garage
Garage is an AI-powered nationwide marketplace for America's most essential vehicles and equipment - fire trucks, ambulances, rescue gear and government surplus. It lets fire departments, municipalities and small businesses buy and sell pricey, specialized assets in minutes instead of months by handling appraisals, payments, paperwork, freight, warranty and financing in one place. Founded in 2023 by Martin Hunt and Alaz Sengul, the Y Combinator-backed company operates in all 50 states and has raised $18M.
Martin Hunt
Martin Hunt is the co-founder and CEO of Garage, an AI-powered marketplace where fire departments, ambulance services, and local governments buy and sell their most expensive gear - fire trucks, ambulances, rescue equipment, and surplus apparatus. A volunteer firefighter at 15 in Delaware who later worked in private equity at Goldman Sachs, Hunt built Garage after a friend in the fire service asked for help unloading old equipment and he found no good way to do it. Out of Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch, Garage now operates across all 50 states and raised a $13.5M Series A in August 2025, bringing total funding to $18M.