Jeremy Renner is sitting in his Lake Tahoe kitchen in a black baseball cap and a someway even darker tee, somberly recounting the main points of the now-famed incident that left him clinging to life. On New Yr’s Day in 2023, Renner was practically killed on his Nevada property when his 14,000-pound snowcat pinned him on an icy mountain. The “tragic accident,” because the Reno sheriff would then name it on the time, left the two-time Oscar nominee with over 30 damaged bones, a collapsed lung, and a pierced liver that left him in important however steady situation in intensive care following surgical procedure.
The 54-year-old, in all probability most well-known for taking part in the Marvel superhero Hawkeye in eight-different appearances, was frank when discussing the incident: if it weren’t for the folks speeding to assist him that fateful New Yr’s Day morning, he could very properly have succumbed to his blunt chest trauma and orthopedic accidents. All paths to his dwelling had been blocked (he was initially making an attempt to dig out a member of the family), and the cascade of emergency responders needed to navigate the brutal terrain to maintain him alive, from fireplace departments, paramedics, and even a Care Flight helicopter, 150 folks in whole, by Renner’s personal rely. He spent months recovering, asking a single query: what might he do for the individuals who saved him?
Courtesy of RapidSOS
The reply, it seems, is RapidSOS.
Renner has change into a accomplice and investor within the New York-based public security AI firm. It’s his first main public security partnership for the reason that accident, however he instructed Fortune it’s not a star endorsement. He described it as a private mission rooted within the debt he can by no means totally repay.
“There’s 150 folks which are chargeable for me not dying,” Renner instructed Fortune in an unique interview forward of the announcement. “I’ll all the time be in debt to them and so grateful for my life. And that’s why I’m part of this firm, as a result of I believe it’ll assist them do their job extra effectively, higher, and that simply trickles down into the individual that they’re serving in an emergency.”
Courtesy of RapidSOS
A private reckoning
The trail from near-death expertise to tech investor was not a straight line. After recovering, Renner started spending time with the primary responders who had come to his assist, from the 911 operator who stayed on the road for 20 minutes not figuring out if he would survive, to the Care Flight pilot and the paramedics who stabilized him in sub-zero circumstances.
“I turned a shopper, or a affected person, to the emergency companies and received a deeper dive into what they do,” Renner stated. “The 1000’s of experiences that they’ve which are simply as harrowing [as his incident]. Each second, each day. Their job is fairly loopy.”
He stated he was struck by how fragmented information-sharing was throughout his personal rescue, a spot he says might price lives. “No data is handed forwards and backwards anymore in these companies the place possibly data she does have may very well be useful to anyone,” Renner stated of the 911 operator who labored his case. “I believe all that data type of must be shared, and information is a very powerful, and when the time is ticking.”
When Renner later realized that most of the similar 911 businesses that responded to his emergency had begun adopting RapidSOS know-how, the funding determination turned clear.
Courtesy of RapidSOS
Enter RapidSOS
RapidSOS was based in 2012 by CEO Michael Martin, who constructed the corporate out of MIT after a private brush with the inadequacy of 911 infrastructure. Graduating school and shifting to the Massive Apple, Martin was strolling dwelling late one night time when he was mugged and located himself unable to get assist simply. That led him down a rabbithole of how a lot data really will get shared, and so he started cold-calling 911 facilities, discovering a nationwide system largely unchanged for the reason that Sixties.
“We realized it was a nationwide infrastructure problem,” Martin instructed Fortune. “There was no federal funding, no federal oversight. Each small city in America was purported to determine these things out.”
As we speak, RapidSOS operates what Martin describes because the world’s largest clever security community, one which connects greater than 23,500 federal, state, and native businesses with real-time information from smartphones, wearable units, 25 million related vehicles, 450,000 related buildings, and greater than 100 million cameras. Half one million emergencies traverse its infrastructure each day.
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Martin described himself as a “information nerd,” as he confirmed Fortune the info {that a} dispatcher receives through the common 911 name, containing the placement and a short overview of the incident. As compared, Martin confirmed the primary transatlantic telegram despatched between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan in 1858, a 98-word message. “This information payload is 512 bytes,” Martin stated. “That was extra information than 911 receives immediately in the course of a life and demise emergency. It’s comical to consider till you’re reminded of the dimensions and magnitude of this problem.”
RapidSOS replaces that lack of information with real-time intelligence that’s on our very our bodies or round us always: crash detection from wearables, reside video from related cameras, exact GPS coordinates, well being profiles from the Crimson Cross and American Coronary heart Affiliation, and AI-driven hazmat identification, extraordinarily vital for latest incidents just like the East Palestine prepare derailment. The purpose is to not change the human dispatcher however to amplify them, Martin stated. “The people of 911 are simply heroes in our group,” Martin stated, “and we had to determine how we might assist them, to harness all this know-how to be like their assistant or their co-pilot.”
It’s already working
Courtesy of RapidSOS
The impression of the platform has been documented in a handful of high-profile saves that illustrate what Martin is constructing. In Edwardsburg, Michigan, a truck veered off a rural street and burst into flames with the motive force unconscious and alone inside. RapidSOS transmitted an automated crash alert from the motive force’s wearable machine on to Cass County Dispatch. In 13 seconds, dispatchers verified the incident and despatched assist. First responders pulled the motive force from the burning wreckage earlier than it was totally engulfed.
In Feb. 2025, a hiker turned severely hypothermic close to the summit of Vermont’s Mount Equinox throughout a winter storm, incapacitated with a dying cellphone battery. RapidSOS supplied Manchester Dispatch with high-accuracy GPS coordinates that put rescuers inside ft of the sufferer in sub-zero circumstances, enabling a grueling multi-agency carry-down operation that saved the hiker’s life.
These are precisely the situations Renner says drove his funding. They weren’t simply circumstances like his personal, the place 150 folks had been out there to reply, however for the lone biker who crashes within the Rockies with nobody round for miles.
Courtesy of RapidSOS
“That’s what is absolutely vital,” Renner stated. “You may take your cellphone, satellite tv for pc stuff, all these items that may appear dangerous, like we’re being tracked, however they’re really actually fairly vital and essential for data to save lots of your life, particularly in distant areas. That is why I’m right here, a part of the corporate: to let folks know there’s data on the market that’s already serving to you.”
Renner was fairly candid that he’s not a pure AI person—the truth is, he expressed his frustration with AI-generated deepfakes of him getting used to defraud donors to his nonprofit, the Renner Basis, which helps veteran companies and deprived youth. “Individuals impersonate me, and it seems to be nice,” Renner instructed Fortune. “And so they’re siphoning cash from individuals who need to assist children,” he stated. “There’s no mattress for you in a darkish place.”
However he attracts a pointy line between AI that exploits and AI that protects. “I personally hate AI, however I’m an actor,” Renner stated with a smile. “When AI is used as a software, particularly a software for good like RapidSOS does, that is probably the most highly effective, most opulent software. AI and algorithms are used to promote you advertisements, to promote you issues, so they need your cash. This isn’t that. That is: we would like AI used to save lots of time, to save lots of lives.”
Renner stated that’s precisely why he does see the optimistic attributes of AI. “What’s my blood sort? He’s going to die of hypothermia greater than he’s going to die of his eyeballs duct-taped inside his head,” Renner stated, recalling his personal rescue. “All his data—data, information—in these sorts of conditions, it’s so vital,” he stated.
Courtesy of RapidSOS
Working along with somebody who’s lived it
Martin says working with Renner was a sensible transfer as a result of he not solely has firsthand expertise of 911 emergency response, but in addition is the embodiment of somebody working with first responders.
“He has this complete effort now the place he’s shopping for used and retired fireplace tools, refurbishing it, and donating it to volunteer businesses,” Martin stated. “Working with somebody who’s so related to the mission and the aim of the unimaginable work of first responders, it’s simply been a tremendous partnership.”
Renner has been spending time with first responders at occasions with RapidSOS, and describes his dedication as long-term. “My private relations with folks in emergency companies can now be talked about as a pathway with this firm, the place they use AI as a software to assist our helpers,” he stated. “I’ve been concerned in emergency companies for a really very long time. I like them. A few of my greatest mates are firefighters. Being concerned locally is one thing I’ve all the time needed to do.”
Renner stated the chance to accomplice with RapidSOS has allowed him to speak along with his mates in a deeper method. “If RapidSOS hadn’t come round, I’d nonetheless simply be having non-public conversations with folks in emergency companies. Now I can actually discuss it, as a result of there’s an actual pathway for them to be helped.”
“Time is so key, man,” Renner stated. “Info is so key to our survival when it’s a life and demise state of affairs.”
