Carbyne sells a cloud-native emergency call-handling platform.
Earlier this year, the 10-year-old Carbyne raised $100 million. That funding round reflected the investor view that public safety technology stands as a solid bet as agencies across the country upgrade their 911 systems to reflect society’s general embrace of digital and mobile technology instead of landlines.
The acquisition comes less than two months after Axon said it was buying Prepared, a startup working to bring more AI, livestreaming and real-time translation in emergency call centers. That deal was worth a reported $800 million.
Axon, best known for its body cameras and Tasers, wants to build “a next-generation emergency communications network” called Axon 911, according to a blog explaining the recent acquisitions.
That effort reflects the reality that most 911 calls come from mobile devices, and that sensors and other hardware are offering increasingly connected and detailed data that helps police, fire and medical personnel respond more quickly and efficiently to calls.
“Prepared enhances intelligence and efficiency on top of existing systems, while Carbyne modernizes the core infrastructure itself,” Axon explains in the blog. “Each delivers powerful value on its own — and together they represent the dual engine powering the transformation of 911 as we know it.”
Axon 911 will offer “real-time intelligence” for calls, with data sent into the field for first responders, according to another company statement.
Other Axon products, including Axon Evidence, will help create what the company describes as a “broader Axon ecosystem” for public-sector clients — part of the general trend in gov tech to sell all-in-one platforms.
"Every year, more than 240 million 911 calls are made in the U.S., and in too many cases, vital information is lost between the call and the response," said Rick Smith, Axon founder and CEO, in a statement. "By uniting Axon's 30-year legacy of innovation with Carbyne's cloud-based call management platform, we're closing that gap, giving call takers and dispatchers instant visibility and connecting them directly to officers in the field.”
Axon expects the deal to close in the first quarter of 2026.
As Axon grows via new products, it is attracting controversy — a situation that other public safety tech suppliers also face as concerns grow about privacy and the use of artificial intelligence in law enforcement.
Even so, the public safety tech business is one of the main engines of recent robust activity in the larger world of government technology — a trend that seems unlikely to stop anytime soon as investors continue to fund AI, seek relatively safe places for their money and public agencies replace 20th century software and hardware with new tools.
