The Safe Zone Gunfire Detection system took top honors last week as the Investor Audience Favorite among six promising early stage companies that participated in the second annual Raleigh Internet of Things (RIoT) RAP Pitch Night held April 10 in Raleigh, N.C.  

More than 150 people heard pitches from a range of young companies that have a connection to the Raleigh technology community. According to Safe Zone Chief Technology Officer John Anderson, Safe Zone, developed by AVIdea Group in Melbourne, Fla., maintains an engineering and R&D team in Raleigh. 

“We pitched against companies involved in a number of important product categories, from environmentally friendly products to smart lighting solutions, and we were thrilled to win the Audience Favorite Award,” Anderson said. “The award is a recognition of just how important affordable and effective gunfire detection has become in our lives in every kind of public space. We’re honored to be meeting genuine community need.” 

The RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP) facilitates entrepreneurial processes across the board, from research commercialization to startup growth, and including corporate innovation — with the opportunity for the industry to seed the accelerator with market-driven problems they are motivated to solve through entrepreneurial partnerships or internal startup teams. RAP increases the impact of traditional accelerator programming by partnering startups with an industry consortium of more than 75 companies across the IoT value chain. Partners provide access to resources and investment capital necessary to launch new products and services.