America has over 100 traffic fatalities every 24 hours. Just last week, a Texas teen was killed and several others were seriously injured after a driver disregarded a stop sign. This week, a New Jersey man died after failing to stop at a stop sign and colliding with a pickup truck. These tragic stories barely make headlines because they’re so common.

Meanwhile, local governments are facing severe talent and funding shortages – with law enforcement agencies, in particular, feeling the strain nationwide. For example, Washington DC is experiencing its most severe officer shortage in 50 years.

Officers once tasked with traffic enforcement are shifting time and physical presence away from busy intersections to address or prevent incidents classified as more serious crimes. As costs increase and budgets are cut, police departments are tasked with doing more while having fewer resources. Road safety is often a sacrifice.

Obvio, a computer vision-powered AI detection and enforcement company, offers municipalities and law enforcement the tools needed to change driver behavior, protect pedestrians at busy intersections and school crossings, and create a new culture of safety on the roadways.

“Dhruv and I are passionate about building products that solve real world problems,” says Obvio’s co-founder & CEO Ali Rehan. “Obvio is a cutting-edge AI/Vision product built to disrupt the traffic safety market, help short-staffed enforcement agencies deter illegal driving and process violations and, most importantly, save lives on the road and in the crosswalks.”

Exceptional founder-market fit

Ali and Dhruv are a stellar team with deep experience working together on computer vision and distracted driving problems. They met during their time working at Motive, jointly responsible for building the company’s computer-vision powered dashcams to help truck drivers drive safely. Ali led technology for all of Motive’s computer vision and AI products, with Dhruv as his lead product manager. The dashcam product eventually was deployed on over 200,000 commercial vehicles and helped reduce traffic incidents by more than 25%. The insights they learned from the experience were instrumental to how they approached the opportunity at Obvio.

Their prior lives also have played a critical role in helping build Obvio. Ali was a former computer vision researcher-turned-entrepreneur, with his first computer vision company being acqui-hired into Motive. Dhruv came from Google, helping scale Google’s developer platform for Augmented Reality. Separately, he helped shape Google’s privacy AR policy and co-founded Hack4Impact, a nationwide movement pairing nonprofits with computer scientists.

Their shared superpowers across technology, product, GTM and policy have enabled Ali and Dhruv to move quickly – building a complex product, enabling new legislation and rapidly deploying to communities.

Communities are demanding these solutions leading to new legislation

Currently, 36 states across America have enacted legislation to enable traffic camera use that helps police departments enforce speeding and red light laws without the need for physical presence and associated costs. We believe this will become a nationwide norm as more legislation is passed to allow for cameras on the roads and, ultimately, more lives are saved.

We’re optimistic because a few pioneering states are starting to think beyond just speeding and red lights to solve stop sign running as well as pedestrian crosswalk violations – Obvio’s sweet spot. Maryland passed legislation to authorize the use of cameras to fix an egregious stop sign running problem, and similar legislation is in the works in Virginia, New York and Colorado.

Real, measurable impact in a matter of weeks

Obvio is already having a positive impact on the country’s roadways. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, two children were struck and killed near a school, prompting local leaders to look for a solution. Obvio’s technology helped municipalities measure the problem: thousands of drivers ran stop signs during pick-up and drop-off hours near schools. Obvio helped share stats with the community (see here), and helped local leaders and policymakers launch the first-of-its-kind, automated stop sign enforcement program. Within 10 weeks of deploying Obvio, severe violations fell by more than 50%.

A police chief customer offers, “What Obvio accomplished in eight weeks with respect to stop sign running, I couldn't accomplish even if I had 30 additional officers. My residents are thrilled to see the roadways safer.”

In addition to safety, placing cameras on stop signs can relieve resource-strapped law enforcement and boosts a shared sense of road responsibility within communities. Safety measures aren’t in place to catch people–they exist to prevent tragedies. New privacy safeguards complementing safety and accountability measures – such as limited data retention, independent audits and community reporting – can help ensure public trust.

Obvio offers measurable safety, effectiveness and efficiency at a time when all three are at a premium.

Founders on a mission

Ali and Dhruv are building a fast-growing AI startup that is leveraging cutting-edge computer vision technology and seeing outstanding momentum and growth rates. But a huge part of our conviction in backing Obvio goes beyond the numbers, the market size and the rate at which they are scaling ARR.

It was clear to us from our first meetings with the founders that they are passionate about the mission of saving lives, making intersections and bike lanes safer, and reducing the problems associated with distracted driving. We heard this echoed by their customers and by their early employees. Their passion and the company’s mission made it easy for us to lean in to back Obvio.

“Obvio was built to provide real accountability to drivers and avoid so many preventable injuries and fatalities,” said Dhruv. “Ali and I have experienced the need for change firsthand. We’ve stood at school intersections, watching hundreds of drivers blow through stop signs and crosswalks. Even the crossing guards we talked to said they felt scared trying to keep school children out of harm’s way.”

By implementing cost-efficient AI technology and advocating for swift regulatory change, we believe Obvio is setting the course for road safety in America that will ultimately save lives and dramatically improve safety for millions of pedestrians, bikers and school children across our neighborhoods and communities. The team at BCV couldn’t be more proud to back Ali and Dhruv, and their mission.