City Detect Raises $13M to Help American Cities Fix Blight Proactively

City Detect raises $13 million Series A led by Prudence to expand into new American cities

TUSCALOOSA, AL, UNITED STATES, March 6, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — City Detect, the AI-powered platform that helps local governments proactively detect and fix urban blight (graffiti, illegal dumping, abandoned structure, etc.), today announced a $13 million Series A funding round led by Prudence, with continued participation from Las Olas Venture Capital, Zeal Capital, Knoll Ventures, Atlanta Seed Co, and others. The investment will accelerate product expansion into public works departments, deepen integrations with municipal software platforms, and scale the company’s PASS AI™ platform, now deployed in cities across the United States.

“City Detect’s customers didn’t just love their product, they evangelized about it. Municipalities are responsible for overseeing and maintaining their built environment, and City Detect’s AI enables a rearchitecture of how they perform this important work. Partnering with Gavin and City Detect through this new round of funding will allow the team to help bring the incredible productivity gains of AI to the public sector who need it now to combat their rising challenges and constrained budgets,” said Gavin Myers, Managing Partner at Prudence

Every day, American cities are losing a battle they can barely see. Graffiti spreads, vacant lots accumulate debris, and roofs quietly deteriorate while code enforcement teams try to keep up one citizen complaint at a time. A code enforcement officer can file roughly 50 reports in a week. City Detect’s PASS AI™ platform delivers thousands of insights daily, helping cities better manage the ever-growing number of issues they face.

The company mounts high-resolution cameras on fleet vehicles already driving city streets, garbage trucks, street sweepers, code enforcement vehicles, and uses computer vision models trained to identify more than 100 signs of urban blight and property decay, from illegal dumping and graffiti to storm damage and overgrown lots. The PASS AI™ graffiti models are sophisticated enough to distinguish between vandalism and sanctioned mural artwork, flagging spray-painted tags while leaving community art alone. The output is a prioritized, mapped dashboard that cuts officers’ fieldwork by more than 25%. Courtesy notices personalized with pictures of the problem are driving 40% voluntary compliance on the first notice in Cathedral City — and 80% overall voluntary compliance in Stockton’s RISE program.

Founded in 2021, City Detect grew 4x in 2025 and now serves customers including the City of Dallas, TX, Cleveland, OH, Stockton, CA, Cathedral City, CA, Miami-Dade County, FL, and others. In Stockton, City Detect’s PASS AI™ identified over 4,000 unique code violations across 2,500 properties in a single week. Prior to working with City Detect, Cleveland spent $170,000 and deployed 40 officers over six months for a comprehensive property survey in 2022. One City Detect-equipped vehicle can now cover the same ground in a matter of weeks. After Hurricane Helene, City Detect helped Greenville, South Carolina, quickly perform a storm damage assessment, a use case the company quickly deploys in response to severe weather damage.

“It’s definitely a force multiplier,” said Justin Gardiner, Code Enforcement Director at Cathedral City. “This is going to revolutionize code enforcement,” said Harold Roach, Director of Code Enforcement at Newport News, VA. “In most cases, people don’t have enough code enforcement officers to deal with the problems they have. This helps direct the resources they have to the problems identified in the community.”

CEO and Co-Founder Gavin Baum-Blake is a U.S. Army veteran and licensed attorney who has spent years watching municipalities respond to urban blight with outdated tools and teams that are stretched thin with ever-expanding scopes of work. That gap between what cities needed and what they had is exactly what City Detect was built to close.

“By leveraging vehicles that are already driving every street anyway and using AI to analyze what they see, we’re able to deliver thousands of valuable insights to cities daily rather than just dozens,” said Baum-Blake. “We’re dedicated to empowering city leaders with data they can trust — our technology isn’t just about identifying problems, it’s about providing actionable insights that allow cities to proactively address issues before they spiral out of control.”

City Detect was built on the belief that technology should serve communities, not extract from them. “This is a built-environment tool,” said Baum-Blake. “It blurs faces and license plates because they’re not relevant to the problems we are solving, which is cleaning up communities and improving neighborhoods.” The company is SOC 2 Type II compliant, operates under a published Responsible AI policy, and is a member of the GovAI Coalition, a nationwide initiative of more than 1,000 members and 350 government agencies.

Blight is not an abstract policy problem. It is the vacant lot that kids walk past on the way to school. It’s the abandoned property that drags down a neighbor’s home value. It’s the graffiti that signals to a community that some things will simply get missed. City Detect exists to ensure none of these community issues go unnoticed.

The $13 million Series A enables the team to heavily invest in its sales and expansion efforts to partner with new local governments across the United States. The team is also excited to roll out its new solutions for public works departments, including infrastructure asset detection and post-storm damage assessment. City Detect raised a $2 million seed round in 2024. The company was founded in Alabama and operates remotely throughout the United States.

About City Detect: City Detect is an AI-powered platform that helps municipalities proactively identify, manage, and mitigate urban decay and blight. Using advanced computer vision and machine learning, City Detect empowers local governments with real-time data and actionable insights to improve urban environments. The company currently operates in cities across the United States. Learn more at citydetect.com

About Prudence: Prudence is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in vertical AI and software companies across construction, infrastructure and real estate. The firm is headquartered in New York City and invests globally. Learn more at prudence.vc

Gavin Baum-Blake
City Detect
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