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The Density company began with a router stuck beneath the register at Café Kubal. The device — a weekend project, the company’s co-founders called it — was supposed to count the number of people in the shop to determine when the line for coffee would be shortest. 

Several years later, that weekend project in Café Kubal has spawned a multi-million dollar company that’s helping businesses reduce the spread of coronavirus as employees return to work.

“Corporations spend millions and millions of dollars on real estate, but ultimately don’t know how they’re being used. It’s a series of guesses,” said Ben Redfield, Density’s co-founder. “We use that data to both enhance the experience with the space, but more importantly, to make better decisions about the space in terms of safety.”

Redfield is one of four SU graduates who are part of a group that co-founded Density in 2014. The company produces anonymous, real-time infrared sensors that track the number of people occupying a room or building, which businesses can use to make decisions about how to use their space. 

When the pandemic struck the United States, the company’s primary appeal shifted from efficiency to safety. Density has now become a key part of companies’ efforts to promote social distancing in their newly-reopened workplaces. 

“The pandemic hit, and all those use cases collided into just two,” said Andrew Farah, co-founder and CEO of Density and another SU graduate. “Keeping people safe, number one, and number two, consolidating real estate to preserve payroll.”

Before the pandemic, Density largely appealed to commercial real-estate. Companies used the device to track how many people were using different rooms or spaces in their buildings. The companies could then make decisions about how to maintain those spaces, from scheduling cleaning to restocking food or supplies.

In the long term, companies could also use the information to decide whether they should sell, repurpose or buy more space to maximize efficiency.

“People count is this really simple data point,” said Brian Weinreich, Density co-founder. “But as you apply it to new industries — if you apply it to retail, if you apply it to corporate real estate, if you apply it to the grocery store — that people-count data point transforms and becomes really valuable.”

Density, which is headquartered in San Francisco but has a production space in Syracuse’s Tech Garden, grew by almost 500% after the pandemic struck, Farah said. Around 80% of its sales over the last 60 days have been related to Safe by Density, a system that tracks the number of occupants in a space to prevent crowding. 

Density, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has a production space in Syracuse’s Tech Garden. Ellizabeth Billman | Senior Staff Photographer

Even before COVID-19 forced companies to reconsider how and where they work, Density was already on track to grow, Farah said. The pandemic just accelerated that growth, he said. 

In July, the company scored a $51 million investment from a group of investors that included former New York Yankees shortstop Alex Rodriguez.

“Not a lot has changed in our business,” Farah said. “We just happen to now support companies that we didn’t expect to be part of our market.”

Density counts multiple household-name companies among its clients, including Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Uber, Deutsche Bank, Exxon Mobil, Verizon and Pepsi, to name a few. Several universities, including New York University, Arizona State University and the University of Alabama, have also employed the product.

But the first business to use the device that would become the base of Farah, Redfield and Weinreich’s startup was Syracuse coffee staple Café Kubal. 

The company’s founders included a team of SU graduates and Syracuse natives who had met through classes and different networks in the city. Before launching Density, the group ran a small software agency with office space near a Café Kubal location, where they often went to get coffee.

Too many times, though, they would go to the café and find a long line. Eventually, they began to wonder why there was no way to know how many people were at the coffeeshop before they arrived, so they could anticipate the wait. That’s how the router came to be. 

“Café Kubal did it as a favor, letting us stick this janky thing under the cash register, but then they started asking us about the data,” Redfield said.  “And that, kind of, is where we started to get ideas.”

The first iteration of Density — the version that sat beneath Café Kubal’s register — didn’t count people, but phones. In the years that followed, the team continued to refine the technology into what it is today: an anonymous infrared sensor that can detect the number of occupants in a room without identifying them.

Years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust Density to the forefront of an emerging industry. But Farah doesn’t believe the product will become any less useful if, or when, the outbreak subsides.

Many of Density’s recent sales were multi-year contracts, Farah said. While some of the clients’ immediate use of the technology had to do with pandemic management, they also have plans to apply the device for different purposes in the long term.

“I don’t think there’s a future where buildings continue to get built but don’t measure their usage, and don’t become aware of the humans in them,” Farah said. 

Published on September 9, 2020 at 11:15 am

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu