ForceMetrics Blueprints: This veteran FBI agent’s technology just might elevate trust in public safety

Costanoa’s BuilderOps Blueprints are designed to help early-stage start-ups build successful foundations. Through this series, Costanoa’s BuilderOps team interviews founders and start-up leaders, showcasing their superpowers and learnings on all things company building. Costanoa is an early-stage VC firm backing builders across data, dev, and fintech.

For our latest BuilderOps Blueprint, we sat down with Andre McGregor, Founder and CEO of ForceMetrics, a decision-assist platform that helps first responders make better, safer and more informed decisions in real time. ForceMetrics raised a $22M Series A round in late 2024 and some incredible job opportunities are available here.

With ForceMetrics, you’re offering a platform that gives first responders – in particular, police – more information in real time as they respond to calls. Why is that important?

Right now, first responders aren’t always getting the information they need to make an accurate assessment before arriving on site and before they take action. Without information, oftentimes there is a sense that they should treat every interaction as more dangerous than it might actually be – and that’s not a good situation for them or the community. 

ForceMetrics offers a shortcut to the process by providing real-time safety and social needs information, such as a clear summary of prior 911 calls with witnesses and victims directly describing what’s happening, in addition to other vital data such as prior complaints and notes from other first responders. Now law enforcement has the data at their fingertips to be able to make a better assessment before they knock on a door or pull someone over. They are not relying on stereotypes or biased visual cues like skin color or tattoos. Interactions with police and other first responders become much faster and safer for citizens – which is great because no community member wants to be pulled over for a two-hour traffic stop or potentially have something escalate to a life-threatening situation. 

That context sounds like it might be useful in other ways too. What other impacts do you foresee from the technology?

You can imagine that, if we have this Venn diagram of someone’s own words describing what’s happening to them, plus notes and data from other interactions and incidents, we can see larger patterns. For example, we might have validation that same-sex relationships also carry a risk of domestic partner violence and need to be resourced appropriately. Now there is data to support that resourcing and make it easier to get people the help they need.

Your career has spanned a pretty broad spectrum – from Goldman Sachs to being a Chief Security Officer and IT Director to being an FBI Special Agent. How have those experiences led you to where you are today?

I would say founding ForceMetrics was the confluence of a few things. I wanted to be a wildlife biologist as a kid, specifically to stop poaching – which sounds like a wildlife cop now that I think about it! I was in emergency services in our town, inspired by a nurse who helped bring my father back to life after he was clinically dead after the paramedics had given up. I had been doing a variety of cybersecurity-focused leadership positions when the FBI called and recruited me for their cyber division. I was there for more than six years, focusing on threats from China, Iran, Russia, and other nation states. 

As a founder, I’m in a very unique position, because I know what it’s like to have pulled my gun in the line of duty.  I’ve also been pulled over at least 30 times and handcuffed three times with no criminal record or history. I am uniquely qualified to speak about this with credibility because I was the law enforcement officer who needed more information and I’m also a community member who was directly impacted by the lack of data and the overreliance on gut instinct. Andre-in-a-suit and Andre-in-a-hoodie are the same person. Neither one is dangerous, but first responders need easy access to data quickly so they can make decisions based on accurate context.

You raised a phenomenal $22M Series A. What’s your advice for founders who are ready to make those pitches to investors but haven’t done it before?

Raising our Series A was an interesting process. After 100+ meetings and numerous trips to Silicon Valley, I can tell you most investors were not at all interested in seeing the demo, which surprised me! What they really want are metrics. They want to know if people are buying your product or service and using it, that’s what investors care about. So make sure you can show how you’re clearly meeting a market need in those conversations.  

Also: I hope that people will learn from my mistakes! We had a pretty large VC request to move our fundraising pitch to an earlier date and it was the most embarrassing pitch because I wasn’t fully prepared to answer some of their major questions. As a CEO and Founder, you truly need to know everything – you can’t punt questions to another senior leader on the team. VCs want to know that you have all of the information to tell your story. You should anticipate all the questions that  investors might ask and come prepared to answer them all. There are so many writeups on what it means to be a Series A company. Work toward the answers like it’s a test you study for in advance.

Right now, I have Series B metrics on my mind and what we need to generate for our next raise. I’m already working toward those answers.

While we’re getting personal, you became a father and launched this business in the same year. What’s your advice for other entrepreneurs considering a similar path?

Don’t do it in the same year! It is hard. 

I think the best thing you can do for yourself is seek the advice of others who have been there before and really listen to it. Being a founder is lonely. You’re managing a lot: hiring the right team, payroll, concerns about running out of money, building the wrong thing, misjudging product-market fit, misfiring on the voice of the user, misidentifying the decision maker. It’s a long list. Seeking the advice of others has really helped us get some strategic wins and grow our business from a handful of people to 40 and counting.

Is it true that ForceMetrics came about in part because of an op-ed you wrote? Tell us more! . 

Yes, it is true. I wrote an op-ed for CNN in the wake of the George Floyd murder. In it, I shared what it was like to be a Black FBI agent, how law enforcement teaches us to neutralize perceived threats, and the impact that has on both policing and the community.

Elizabeth Patterson at Sapphire Ventures sent me a message and said she’d love to have a conversation with me around how technology might change things for the better. Having that conversation was the nudge I needed to start this company. She said, “Maybe you can turn this into a company” and then generously offered to make introductions. Two years later, she was at my wedding. 

Moral of the story: answer your inbox messages! 

Do you ever feel impostor syndrome? This feels both super common and like something founders don’t really talk about.

Every single day. 

I have all the credentials: Brown University, the FBI, Goldman Sachs, etc. I feel incredibly blessed to have this diverse background – but I didn’t grow up knowing how to activate the network of friends and acquaintances I have. I was friends with people because friendship was the goal. 

I look at what we’ve accomplished and it’s real. Last year, our platform helped find three suspected school shooters before they were able to hurt anybody. Our team is truly excited about the year ahead and they want to be here working on what we’re creating, which is the notion of bringing trust back to public safety. ForceMetrics has been in the media for all the right reasons. How often does a security application make the nightly news? That’s pretty cool.