Some startups pivot because the original idea wasn’t working. Others pivot because they accidentally stumbled into a massive real-world problem. That’s exactly what happened to Max Keenan, founder of Aurelian.
Back in YC’s Summer 2022 batch, Keenan was building a scheduling tool for hair salons. Nothing too wild — just helping people book their trims without the phone tag. But then a hair salon client flagged a bigger headache: the school carpool line was blocking her parking lot. She tried calling the city’s non-emergency line… and sat on hold for 45 minutes. When she finally got through, she looked at Keenan and basically said: “You build software, right? Fix this.”
That single conversation lit the fuse for Aurelian’s real mission: building an AI voice assistant for 911 centers. Why? Because non-emergency calls — things like parking violations, noise complaints, even lost wallets — were clogging up the same lines as actual life-or-death emergencies. And the humans answering them? Often the same dispatchers handling true 911 crises.
Fast forward: Aurelian just raised a $14M Series A led by NEA and is now live in more than a dozen 911 centers, including Chattanooga, Kalamazoo, and Snohomish County. Their AI agent takes non-urgent calls, collects the right details, and files reports — while instantly kicking true emergencies back to a human dispatcher.
For cities, this is a lifesaver. Dispatchers are constantly short-staffed, pulling 12–16 hour shifts in one of the highest-turnover jobs in the U.S. As NEA’s Mustafa Neemuchwala put it: “You’re not replacing someone’s job. You’re replacing a person they wanted to hire but couldn’t.”
And while other AI startups are circling the same space, Aurelian has one key flex: they’re already live, handling thousands of calls every day.
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