When Kevin Hartz’s security system failed to alert him when an intruder rang his doorbell and tried to break into his San Francisco home late one night, the serial entrepreneur decided existing solutions weren’t good enough. Their co-founder, Jack Abraham, faced similar frustrations at his Miami Beach residence.

In 2024, they launched Sauron —named after the sinister, all-seeing eye from “The Lord of the Rings”—what he envisioned as a military-grade home security system for the tech elite. The notion resonated in Bay Area circles during and after the pandemic, despite departmental statistics from the San Francisco Police Department showing a drop in property crime and homicide rates last year.

The startup raised $18 million from the executives behind Flock Security and Planter, defense tech investors including 8VC, Ibrahim’s startup Lab Atom, and Hertz’s investment firm A*. It came out of stealth exactly a year ago, promising to launch in the first quarter of 2025 with a system that promises AI-powered intelligence, advanced sensors like leather and thermal imaging, and 24/7 human monitoring by veterans and law enforcement personnel.

But a year later, Sauron is still very much in growth mode—a fact that its new CEO, Maxim “Max” Bovat Merlin, candidly admitted in a recent interview with TechCrunch.

After nearly nine years at Sonos, including as chief product officer, Boat-Merlin took the helm at Sauron just last month. He’s spending his first days on the job finalizing key questions: what sensors to use, how the deterrence system will work, and when the company can realistically get the product into customers’ homes.

The answer to that last question? Later in 2026 as early as – a significant delay from the original timeline.

“We are in the development phase,” Bovat Merlin said. All the different components — our concierge service, our AI software running on the servers, our smart cameras — are coming together to form the blocks that we’ve just put in place.”

Still, Bovat-Merlin sees striking parallels between Sauron and Sonos, both of which target wealthy consumers first, rely on word-of-mouth growth, and combine complex hardware with sophisticated software. “I had lunch with John McFarlane, the founder of Sonos, a couple of weeks ago,” Bovat Merlin said. “When starting Sonos they were thinking about all the topics that were exactly the topics that we’re discussing at Sauron.”

Both companies faced the same strategic questions: Start with super-premium customers or mass-premium? Professional installation or DIY? Build everything at home or partner with an ecosystem? “We may make different decisions, but the questions are very similar,” he said.

Security issue

Bovat-Merlin says he was drawn to Sauron both by the mission and the opportunity to solve a real customer problem. “It’s important to make people’s homes safe, but I also like changing people’s minds before they make a bad decision and get into trouble,” he said.

Their research shows that market leaders in premium home security have small market shares and negative net promoter scores. “People today are not happy with their solutions,” he said. “There are so many false positives that when law enforcement is called, they don’t respond because they assume it’s a false alarm.”

The company is targeting consumers “where safety and security are a major concern” — people like Hertz. The plan is to start with that premium segment, build a reputation for supporting demanding clients, then expand into what Bovat-Merlin calls “mass premium.”

Product (which is still taking shape)

So what exactly is right? The answer is still being developed. The offering starts with camera pods containing multiple sensors, Boett-Merlin said. These pods connect to servers running machine learning software for computer vision, all connected to a 24/7 concierge service staffed by veterans and law enforcement personnel.

“Those people understand patterns,” he said. “They are good at helping us mature our machine learning solutions and training our systems to detect strange behavior.”

The deterrence system is somewhat ambiguous. Options being considered include loudspeakers, flashing lights and other methods. But Bovat-Merlin stressed that deterrence should start before entering a property, finding out when homes are being monitored, seeing cars patrolling neighborhoods multiple times, and identifying risks at every step.

“The clearer we are, the more we can convince people that this is the wrong house and the wrong decision to make,” he said.

As for the drones mentioned when Cervan scrapped its plans last year, Bovat Merlin declined to say much. “These are roadmap conversations. I don’t want to go too deep at this point because there are so many things we can do, but we’re such a small company,” he said. The big picture, he added, is focusing on growing the ecosystem through partnerships rather than pinning the wheel.

Timeline and business model

With fewer than 40 employees, Sauron plans to hire only 10 to 12 more in 2026. The company will begin working with early adopters later in 2026, with a series of fundraisers planned for mid-year.

“Raising Series A is not because we have to—it’s because we want to,” Boett-Merlin said. “I want to make sure that we are demonstrating progress and explaining how we will use the additional funds to accelerate growth, [including to] Launch our first end-to-end product, drive customer adoption, and accelerate the roadmap.

The company has already attracted a significant list of potential customers, he said, thanks to the work of Sauron’s three founders, who include roboticists and engineers. Vasumathi Raman. “We expect the strategy to be word of mouth initially, then grow differently over time.”

But Bovat-Merlin is cautious about the development. “I want to make sure we grow consistently and maintain the experience and service premium over time,” he said. “I want to manage growing pains as much as possible while driving profits.”

The question of the surveillance state

Facial recognition and privacy concerns are large for a surveillance-heavy product. Bovat-Merlin outlined one approach: a trust-based system where landlords grant access to certain people. “I got you access to my house, so now you are in the trusted group. When you come, I find out that you and yours are allowed. Everyone else is an unknown person,” he said, painting a picture of a possible scenario.

License plate detection is also being considered to identify cars that circle neighborhoods multiple times. “How do we assess if it’s a threat? Having a team of ex-military and ex-law enforcement would be really good at helping mature our machine learning solution,” he said.

Either way, Boat-Merlin is confident of the opportunity ahead because of Sauron’s approach. “A lot of companies started out as traditional security companies and are trying to incorporate tech,” Bovat Merlin said. “We’re looking at it from the opposite angle — we’re a tech startup in San Francisco that brings technology to this market.”

Sauron is also appearing on the scene as concerns about crime among the ultra-wealthy increase. Recent high-profile incidents include the November armed robbery at the home of tech investors Lachie Groom and Joshua Buckley in San Francisco’s Mission District, where $11 million in cryptocurrency was stolen during a 90-minute ordeal that involved violence and threats.

“We see people who are wealthy attracting criminals,” Bovat-Merlin said. “We’ve seen a lot of robberies in San Francisco and other major U.S. cities, sometimes at gunpoint. I don’t think the world is getting safer – there are probably greater disparities between people at the top of the wealth spectrum. We are anxious to secure our homes.”

Still, much is uncertain about Sauron’s path. The company has to finalize everything from sensor configuration to manufacturing locations. (Bovat-Merlin mentions possibly starting in the U.S. for proximity and control, then moving to more affordable locations as volume increases.)

It also has to determine how to serve customers in different settings, with different settings, from dense urban residences to civilian residences, while maintaining premium service standards.

For now, Bovat-Merlin says he’s focused on listening to his team, building credibility and finalizing the strategy he’s putting in place. “I don’t demand that people trust me – I want to show them why they should.”

The company expects to share more details about its product later next year.