Lassen Peak, a Bellevue, Wash.-based startup developing a handheld concealed weapon detection system, has raised $6 million from Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group.
The cash infusion announced Thursday extends a Series A round that raised $16 million last year. Lassen Peak previously raised $10 million in a seed round in November 2021, and total funding is now $32 million.
Using terahertz frequency imaging radar, Lessen’s device is intended for use by law enforcement, military, and private venues. The company says its application addresses the public safety concerns around physical weapon searches or “pat-downs” that it calls “highly dangerous for individuals conducting the search, as well as the individuals being searched.”
In a blog post, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and Venture Partner Patrick Ennis wrote about how the Lassen device allows for concealed weapons detection at a distance without physical contact.
“A simple way to describe their initial product is to take a large airport security scanner and make it fit in the palm of one hand so it is portable, battery operated and costs 100x less,” the post says. “Using the latest imaging software and AI, weapons can be highlighted on a person while preserving personal privacy and not displaying (nor storing) any private images of a person’s body.”
Lassen Peak was co-founded in 2019 by Chairman and CEO Hatch Graham, a longtime inventor, engineer and entrepreneur, and Chief Scientist Dr. Ehsan Afshari, a professor at the University of Michigan and expert in ultra-high frequency microelectronics. Chief Technology Officer and SVP of Product Ryan Kearny was previously CTO at F5; and Chief Operating Officer Ian Felix was formerly senior VP of product engineering and manufacturing at Hound Labs.
News of the funding comes as the startup said it demonstrated a successful functional proof of concept to members of the public safety community at the 2023 International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference and Exposition in San Diego.
One law enforcement professional called the technology “Superman vision” after the demo.
“This innovation may become a transformational change to police standards, globally, because of how it serves both police and community, alike,” former San Jose, Calif. Chief of Police Chris Moore said in a statement.
The added capital will support Lassen Peak as it prepares for 2024 pilots, taking place primarily in police and sheriff agencies in the U.S. and U.K.
With Lassen Peak’s expertise in wireless, microelectronics, AI and computer vision, combined with intense customer focus, Madrona’s Porter and Ennis said in their blog post that the company fits squarely within the firm’s ongoing investment themes. They cited previous investment in similarly minded companies such as Impinj, Echodyne, and Isilon.
“The overall market size is huge, and we feel Lassen Peak’s product can become a standard-issue device for many organizations, similar to the deployment of body cameras over the last decade,” Madrona said in its blog post. “There are roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in America, and tens of millions of law enforcement and security personnel worldwide.”
