Today we are announcing that TPG Rise has made a growth investment in Tablet Command. Here is how we got here, why we chose this partner, and what it means for you.
We started Tablet Command as an idea, and in the early days it felt like finding our way through the dark. We were not alone. Investors took a chance on us, guides kept us honest, and customers saw the difference the product could make before we had proven anything. Their belief turned the idea into something real.
I still remember when the app launched inside my own department, and it was used on one of the fires I was assigned to. I felt safer working a fire knowing that incident commanders had a tool like Tablet Command to help support them.
Building a great product matters, but what matters most is our customers' trust and the impact we leave behind.
In my career, I loved the camaraderie, the ability to perform in time-compressed situations, and making decisions that drastically changed outcomes. The calls that stay with me are not the ones where I was just doing the job. They are the ones where we truly made a difference.
The same is true at Tablet Command. It is the accounts of crews responding to calls faster and customers describing the difference in their situational awareness. The moments that stand out are hearing legitimate, well-respected incident commanders and operators say that Tablet Command made the difference. One crew was navigated out of harm's way during the Caldor Fire. On another call, an IC from a neighboring department picked up Tablet Command and ran the incident on it, having never used it before and with no training. Those ICs will tell you Tablet Command created a different outcome. We hear the same phrase from departments across the country: “it's a game changer”. Those accounts come from people the industry trusts, and they tell me our work is doing what we hoped it would.
We built a company the fire service trusts, and I am just as proud that our team believes in and loves what they do. That is the work of everyone who has helped along the way. The employees who chose to build this with us, the customers who trusted us before we had earned it, and the investors who backed us when it was still just an idea.
Why Now
Tablet Command has been successful by almost any measure: growth, product, customer stories. We have grown 5x in headcount in the last four years, all of it funded by our own cash flow, with no debt and without getting out over our skis. We grew that way on purpose, because the departments that depend on us need a company that will still be here in ten years. We have built one of the most robust and scalable infrastructure deployments in the industry. And partnership is not a word we use loosely. Our customers are true partners to us, and we work to be the same for them.
But the company has always had a somewhat bootstrapped feel to it. Tablet Command is the right solution for this industry, and both our success and the needs of the fire service are moving faster than a bootstrapped pace can serve. We need to be ready to deliver. Taking it to the next level meant finding outside investment. That was a difficult decision. It was also the right one.
Why TPG Rise
Over the last year, we met with a multitude of great potential partners. Along the way, it became clear that TPG Rise is not just any investment partner. As we came to understand what an impact fund really is, and how TPG Rise invests in companies that aim to deliver both strong financial returns and positive social or environmental outcomes, their culture started to emerge. The alignment was not only in what our two companies are trying to do in the world - It was in how they work.
Finding a partner that aligned with our mission, our culture, our reputation, and our brand was the entire exercise. Tablet Command was built by the fire service to serve our customers' mission of making an impact. TPG Rise is a growth equity fund built around making an impact. That alignment could not be more perfect.
What Comes Next
The first thing to say is what is not changing. Our management team is staying. The people you call, email, and work with every day are not changing.
We will continue to be Tablet Command. We will keep building great products. We will keep maintaining the reliable, scalable infrastructure our customers depend on. We will continue to deliver the same outstanding customer service you have come to expect from us.
What will change is our capacity to grow. We do some things really well, but we are always trying to do better, and we believe TPG Rise gives us the resources and the guidance to do that faster. Better product, better service, better support. All of it in service to you.
One last thing about our team. More than half of our company, including Andy and me, are current or former public safety professionals. We came from the same stations you do. That is not a marketing line. It is a part of who we are, and it is why your outcomes matter to us.
There is so much opportunity, and we look forward to doing it.
Sincerely,
William Pigeon
Co-Founder and CEO
Tablet Command
