By Pietro Decio

Physical security is a very large sector of the economy, employing two million people and generating $50 billion in annual spend in the U.S. alone. Yet, despite its size, the industry operates on infrastructure that hasn’t meaningfully evolved in decades.

For property managers and businesses, security is often a “black box.” They pay for peace of mind, but they rarely have visibility into what is actually happening on site. Did the patrol happen? Were incidents reported on correctly?

For security firms, the challenge is operational. It is a low-margin business that relies on brute force to scale. Managing guards usually involves fragmented tools, manual phone trees, and constant human coordination.

When we met the team at Guard Owl, we saw an opportunity to bring transparency and automation to a space that urgently needs both. We are excited to announce that Tower Research Ventures (“TRV”) has led a $3M investment round in Guard Owl, alongside Pear and other strategic angel investors.

Solving the “Black Box” Problem

Guard Owl’s thesis is straightforward: the physical security industry is limited by manual oversight. To fix this, they have built a platform that intelligently connects security firms with their employees and clients, as well as with third party monitoring systems, replacing manual coordination with software agents.

The platform focuses on the two biggest bottlenecks in security operations:

• Supervision: Traditionally, ensuring a guard does their job requires a human supervisor driving from site to site. Guard Owl’s AI Supervisor Agent automates this. A client defines expectations (e.g., “check the loading dock at 10 p.m.”), and the system verifies compliance in real-time without needing a human manager on the ground.
• Dispatch: Turnover and call-offs are constant issues in physical security. Guard Owl’s Automated Dispatcher handles this instantly. When a shift opens up, the software evaluates available personnel based on qualifications and constraints, then automatically contacts and assigns the right person.

This is about both efficiency and accountability. It gives security firms better tools to run their business and gives clients proof that they are getting what they pay for. The end result is better security for all involved.

Market Validation

The product is already working. Guard Owl is currently live across a wide variety of assets, from residential complexes to commercial retail. A large international grocery store chain is using Guard Owl across 32 locations in California. The software is also being rolled out at some of the largest residential property managers in the country, as well as leading educational institutions.

This traction highlights a key insight: while the customer profiles differ, the operational pain points (accountability, coverage, and reporting) are shared across the board. Modern security operations require unifying physical guards, AI-powered cameras, and digital workflows on a single platform. By connecting human response with real-time AI visibility, organizations gain faster response times, stronger accountability, and a safer overall environment.

The Right Team for the Job

At TRV, we look for organizations that combine technical excellence with deep market understanding and empathy. The Guard Owl team is a great representation of this.

CEO Narek Kajikian brings strong engineering rigor from his time at SpaceX, where he focused on reliability for Dragon vehicles, while co-founder Sam Abelyan spent his early career building robotics software. They are grounded by co-founder Edrees Tabibzada, who was raised in the industry as part of a family security business. Edrees achieved meaningful entrepreneurial success in this space at a young age, giving the team a unique understanding of the pain felt in security services.

Looking Ahead

Guard Owl is hiring across engineering and sales to support their next phase of growth. We are thrilled to be partnering with them as they build the modern operating system for physical security.

For more information about Guard Owl, visit https://guardowlco.com/.