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SoundThinking

Security · Fremont, United States · Founded 1995 · IPO 2017

SoundThinking, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSTI) is a public safety technology firm that provides data-centric solutions and strategic advisory services to law enforcement and civic leaders. The company's genesis traces back to 1996 when physicist Dr. Robert Showen founded ShotSpotter. Inspired by his work on earthquake epicenter location at the Stanford Research Institute, Dr. Showen applied similar acoustic wave principles to detect and locate gunshots, teaming up with engineers Dr. Robert Calhoun and Jason Dunham to establish the company. Ralph Clark joined as President and CEO in 2010, leveraging over 30 years of corporate and financial leadership experience, including roles at IBM, Goldman Sachs, and as CEO of GuardianEdge Technologies. Clark was instrumental in pivoting the company to a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model, making the technology more accessible through annual subscriptions instead of large capital purchases. This strategic shift accelerated adoption and led to the company going public in 2017. In April 2023, the company rebranded from ShotSpotter, Inc. to SoundThinking to better reflect its expanded portfolio of public safety solutions. SoundThinking's business model is primarily subscription-based, generating recurring revenue from contracts with its more than 250 customers, which include municipal law enforcement agencies and universities. The company's offerings are consolidated under the SafetySmart™ Platform, an integrated suite of tools designed to improve public safety outcomes. The platform's flagship product, ShotSpotter®, remains the core acoustic gunshot detection system, which alerts police to gunfire incidents, often in less than 60 seconds. Other key products include CrimeTracer™, a law enforcement search engine with access to over a billion records from various justice systems to generate investigative leads ; CaseBuilder®, a cloud-based system for managing all aspects of a criminal investigation from digital evidence collection to case file creation for prosecutors ; and ResourceRouter™, software that analyzes crime data to direct patrol resources to areas where they can most effectively deter crime. Keywords: public safety technology, law enforcement software, acoustic gunshot detection, SaaS, police technology, criminal investigation management, crime data analysis, patrol management software, civic leadership solutions, data-driven policing, ShotSpotter, CrimeTracer, CaseBuilder, ResourceRouter, Ralph Clark, Robert Showen, law enforcement search engine, forensic services, incident response technology, public safety platform, community safety solutions, investigative tools