When Kevin Hartz’s security system failed to alert him as an intruder rang his doorbell and tried to enter his San Francisco home late one night, the serial entrepreneur decided existing solutions weren’t good enough. His co-founder Jack Abraham had experienced 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” — to build what they envisioned as a military-grade home security system for tech elites. The concept resonated in Bay Area circles, where crime had become a constant topic during and after the pandemic, despite San Francisco Police Department statistics showing property crime and homicide rates declining last year.
The startup raised $18 million from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir, defense tech investors including 8VC, Abraham’s startup lab Atomic, and Hartz’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 combining AI-driven intelligence, advanced sensors like LiDAR and thermal imaging, and 24/7 human monitoring by former military and law enforcement personnel.
But a year later, Sauron is still very much in development mode — a reality that its new CEO, Maxime “Max” Bouvat-Merlin, acknowledged candidly in a recent interview with TechCrunch.
After nearly nine years at Sonos, including a stint as chief product officer, Bouvat-Merlin took the helm of Sauron just last month. He’s spending his first days on the job finalizing fundamental questions: which sensors to use, how exactly the deterrence system will work, and when the company can realistically get products into customers’ homes.
The answer to that last question? Later in 2026 at the earliest — a significant delay from t …