It was a brutal autumn for the weapons detection company Evolv. An estimated $4-6 million accounting error cost it $300 million in market cap. Its CEO and CFO were forced out, just weeks before a settlement with the FTC over allegations of misleading marketing. An SEC probe appears to be ongoing. And they even got caught up in the drama surrounding New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
But the crazy thing about Evolv? Its customers — who use the technology to protect high-stakes venues like NBA arenas, NFL stadiums, Disney theme parks, and schools — seem to love it, no matter the headlines.
“This is about saving kids,” said one director of safety for a school system, who told Hunterbrook he confiscated multiple firearms on his first day using Evolv. He says he will not ditch the platform. In fact, he says, he’s hoping to buy more systems.
With a new CEO named this morning, is this the start of a vibe shift for Evolv?
Based on Hunterbrook Media’s reporting, Hunterbrook Capital is long Evolv Technologies (NASDAQ: $EVLV)at the time of publication. Positions may change at any time. See full disclosures below.
Evolv Technologies (NASDAQ: $EVLV) — which makes AI-powered weapons scanners for schools, Disney theme parks, arenas, hospitals, and stadiums — has enduredafusillade of bad news in recent months.
Then, on November 26, Evolv reached a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to resolve a lawsuit over allegations it’s been falsely hyping its technology. The pending agreement requires Evolv to offer a limited number of K-12 schools the option to cancel their contracts, but includes no fines or admission of guilt.
Hunterbrook Media has often exposed stories like this: companies that engage in shady corporate practices and hawk products that don’t deliver. (We even posted a video poking fun at the Eric Adams kerfuffle back in October.)
But as Hunterbrook dug into Evolv — interviewing customers and investors, studying surveys and emails acquired via public records requests, and diving into its financials — a counter-narrative emerged. While Evolv’s accounting, branding, and crisis communications can be as sloppy as a night clubbing with Mayor Adams at Zero Bond, the product itself is beloved by many customers.
And in schools, the focus of the FTC settlement, Evolv isn’t just more convenient than traditional metal detectors, according to users. It seems to have saved lives.
“I have people’s jewels in my care for eight hours a day,” said Lawrence Fernandez, the Director of Safety and Security at Madera Unified School District. “At first, I wasn’t sure we’d even entertain the idea of Evolv. Now, we’re looking to buy more.”
And about that FTC order requiring Evolv to offer schools the chance to cancel their deals with the company?
“That report doesn’t mean anything to us because we work with Evolv every day,” said Fernandez, a sentiment echoed by school safety officials across the country in conversations with both Hunterbrook and local news outlets.
Evolv’s co-founder Michael Ellenbogen wrote to Hunterbrook that he has heard similar positive feedback from customers — as the company pursues “greater transparency and rebuilding trust.”
“While recent developments have overshadowed what has been strong business momentum and performance, we continue to have a growing customer base that recognizes the importance of our solutions,” said Ellenbogen, who served as interim CEO of Evolv after the firing of his predecessor at the end of October.
“We are pleased that our customers believe in the importance of our technology and have validated its performance at scale, balancing consistent detection with a positive security experience,” said Ellenbogen.
But Evolv’s future won’t be his to shape: he told Hunterbrook that he is looking forward to the company “appointing a permanent CEO who has the talent, operating prowess, and vision to write and execute Evolv’s next chapter.”
On Monday, Evolv named that new CEO: John Kedzierski, a Motorola executive who had served as its General Manager of Video Security and Access Control.
Motorola has been a long-time partner of Evolv’s — and anchored the transaction that brought the company public.
Evolv: Too good to be true — or just that good?
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, two entrepreneurs founded Evolv to transform security screening. Ellenbogen had been CEO of Reveal Imaging Technologies, acquired by the Fortune 500 conglomerate SAIC in 2010. Anil Chitkara had served as an executive across a number of companies, including Accenture and PTC.Disclosure: Ellenbogen and Chitkara incubated Evolv as Entrepreneurs-in-Residence at venture capital firm General Catalyst, which remains a significant shareholder in Evolv. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation of a General Catalyst co-founder invested in Hunterbrook about a decade later, in 2023.
They teamed up with an ambitious goal: deploy a data-driven system capable of accurately detecting weapons in real time to replace slow metal detectors accompanied by invasive pat-downs.
Unlike scanners that beep at anything metallic, Evolv claims its flagship product, Evolv Express, uses machine learning to distinguish between harmless objects like laptops or keys and genuine threats, such as guns or knives.
The technology company also boasts impressive stats: Evolv Express has said it can process up to 3,600 people per hour, nearly ten times faster than a conventional metal detector.
The FTC, investigative reporters, and certain experts have called this marketing into question.
In its complaint, the FTC argued that Evolv had “made false or unsupported claims about its security screening system” and “misrepresented the extent to which the system will detect weapons and ignore harmless items.”
“It has implied falsely or without adequate substantiation that users can avoid the trade-offs between a highly secure screening process and a seamless experience for those entering a venue,” the FTC wrote. It also chided the company for allegedly exaggerating the extent to which its product relies on artificial intelligence.
The complaint mirrored claims made in a wide range of investigations, including ones by IPVM, a security and surveillance industry research group that has been reporting on Evolvforquitesometime. “Evolv made a conscious and deliberate decision, in my opinion, to misrepresent what its technology can and can’t do,” Don Maye, IPVM’s Head of Operations, told Hunterbrook, characterizing the company’s marketing as “a pattern of absolute deception.”
(Watch here for a compilation of the ways in which Evolv’s marketing has, well, evolved in the aftermath of IPVM’s reporting — from promising to “end the active shooter and terrorist threat” to “creating safer experiences.”)
IPVM argues that Evolv’s system comes with significant trade-offs: On lower-sensitivity settings, certain small guns and knives can make it through Evolv’s detectors — while, at higher-sensitivity settings, Evolv has been known to flag every day items like three-ring binders as dangerous. (“Evolv said it was creating weapon free zones. Evolv is creating metal free zones,” quipped Maye.)
Dr. Rachel Greenstadt, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at NYU, studies AI, security systems, and privacy. “The hype is bigger than what systems can actually do,” she told Hunterbrook, referring to the AI branding. “They can do a lot and it’s impressive, and those gains are real. But there’s still a big gap between the promises and the reality.”
And yet major customers don’t seem to mind – they keep turning to Evolv for security.
It’s used in NFL stadiums and NBA arenas, from Boston to Atlanta to Pittsburgh. It has been adopted by Disney and Dollywood. “Addressing security threats is more than a 9-5 job,” said the company’s president, in a reference to the Dolly song. And so far, the vast majority of its customers renew their deals with Evolv when their contracts conclude.
“I think the Evolv system is achieving the best combination of reliability and speed of anything on the market,” said Bradly Widener, The Director of Operations at Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, one of many cultural institutions across the country that relies on Evolv, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“They’re pretty accurate,” said the security guard at the Met on Saturday night, speaking of the Evolv detectors that were screening dozens of people within minutes.
And then, there are the schools.
An Imperfect Tool To Counter A National Crisis
School shootings have become a “fact of life” in the United States, according to the next Vice President, who, like the President-elect, is supported by the NRA and does not appear interested in doing anything to crack down on gun ownership.
That means these tragedies — the dead children, the empty chairs, the broken hearts — will not be going anywhere anytime soon.
But it does not mean that schools are giving up the fight.
In November, at Champaign Central High School in Illinois, a 16-year-old student attempted to bring a gun into the building. That same week, students in Pittsburgh and Kentucky did the same. In each case, the weapon was identified by Evolv security systems installed in the schools. And in each case, no harm came to any student — although, in Pittsburgh, despite the weapon being flagged by Evolv, the school failed to confiscate it.
“For better or worse, these success stories do not receive the same attention as a negative headline,” wrote Ellenbogen in his statement to Hunterbrook.
And these schools are just three of the more than 800 across the country where Evolv’s technology is used.
It’s not close to a comprehensive solution to gun violence. (One big issue: school-shooters sometimes elect to enter facilities with their weapons brandished.) And as the FTC alleged, the technology’s limitations have had tragic consequences: In October 2022, “a student was stabbed by a 7-inch knife that reportedly passed through an Express scanner.” (Read more about that story here.)
But in schools across the country that spoke with Hunterbrook, staff say its systems have become a valuable line of defense.
And while the FTC settlement mandates that Evolv inform a subset of its K-12 school customers of their right to cancel contracts within 60 days, Hunterbrook’s conversations with some of these customers — and a review of surveys and emails from educators — revealed a high degree of satisfaction with Evolv’s security systems.
“It’s a tremendous tool in our toolbox to get kids screened,” Bryan DalPorto, Director of Security for the Niagara Falls City School District, told Hunterbrook, adding that Evolv scanners are “not invasive to the person during the search, which is great.”
For DalPorto, Evolv’s ability to pinpoint threats on the body is game-changing. Traditional metal detectors, he explained, “just beep.”
“Good luck finding whatever it is.”
With Evolv, guards can identify not only that a weapon is present but where it’s located, making the response faster and more precise.
Niagara Falls schools haven’t faced a major incident since installing Evolv, which DalPorto credits to the system serving as a powerful preventative measure. “It is a huge deterrent,” he said, calling Evolv “a good system of checks and balances for the kids.”
“It’s definitely doing what I expected it to do and honestly, I think it’s the best out there in terms of what we need it for,” he added.
Hunterbrook’s review of Evolv’s implementation in several other school districts reveals that DalPorto’s perspective is not uncommon.
In Alexandria City Virginia, a pilot of Evolv’s system led to a 71% reduction in weapons-related incidents at ACPS secondary schools. And in a survey of nearly 1,900 students, parents, staff, and community members after the pilot, ACPS found widespread support of Evolv.
Asked whether the pilot program resulted in a safer school environment, 50% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed, while 27% disagreed or strongly disagreed. And an overwhelming 84% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed when asked whether the screening process took too long, contrasting with criticisms that Evolv systems — while not immune from false positives — function like traditional metal detectors, which often create bottlenecks during high-traffic times.
The survey also explored the community’s appetite for continuing the program. On the question of whether the weapons abatement pilot should remain in place at ACPS secondary schools, 47% agreed or strongly agreed, while 33% disagreed or strongly disagreed, reflecting a range of opinions about the trade-offs between safety, cost, and implementation challenges.
Evolv’s systems flagged 33,515 potential threats across 145,460 scans over a seven-month period, with 123 verified as actual weapons, including firearms and knives.
The deployment wasn’t without challenges. False positives triggered by items like laptops or large school supplies frustrated staff and students. And emails uncovered through the FOIA request show administrators grappling with these issues — but on balance, the community defended the system as an essential safety measure.
As one email noted, “Doing nothing was NOT an option.”
In Prince William County, meanwhile, no firearms were detected by Evolv during the entire first school year it was in use, and the number of “other” weapons — including knives, box cutters, and pneumatic weapons (think: No Country For Old Men or… paintball) — dropped by 72% compared to the previous year, according to a school board meeting covered by a local news outlet.
“That’s a pretty good ROI on these Evolv scanners,” said Gainesville District School Board Member Jenn Wall. “There was some concern in the community about whether that was going to be a good investment—seems like we are gathering some data to show that it is.”
Vernon Bock, the district’s Chief Operating Officer, also highlighted how the scanners serve as a deterrent for other safety issues, such as vaping.
While not explicitly designed for this purpose, Evolv may have contributed to a decrease in vaping incidents by discouraging students from carrying prohibited items into school buildings, he said.
Of course, there is a possible alternative explanation: The kids have simply turned to zynning.
The FTC Settlement Threatens a Small Percentage of Evolv’s Business — And Schools Don’t Seem To Be Leaving
In FTC Chair Lina Khan’s tweet on the Commission’s settlement with Evolv, she writes that the order “requires Evolv to notify certain K-12 school customers that they can cancel their current contracts.”
Only a fraction of Evolv’s deals are covered. There are three categories of schools excluded from the settlement:
1) Schools that participated in a pilot program of at least 30 days prior to such purchase or contract; 2) Schools that purchased 15 or more Evolv Express units; or 3) Schools that purchased or contracted for, and deployed, additional Evolv Express units more than 45 days after initially deploying Evolv Express at a school.
Evolv’s deal-making process tends to be long, involving meetings with city councils and school boards, as well as pilot programs. That is why, as Evolv announced following the FTC investigation, only a fraction of its business may be affected by the requirement that it give certain customers the option to cancel. These clients represent approximately 4% of the company’s annual recurring revenue, according to Evolv.
And so far, there is little evidence that a substantial share of these customers will take Evolv up on its offer to cancel.
Columbus City Schools in Ohio have chosen to maintain their relationship with Evolv following the FTC settlement. “Since our implementation February 2023, it has reduced the number of guns collected or attempting to be brought into our high schools by students and visitors,” a school spokesperson told WBNS. “We believe that the weapons detection system provides our district another layered approach to our security processes.”
Mobile County Public School System in Alabama reacted similarly, according to a local Fox station, which says they are “aware of the allegations made by the FTC” but “confident the detectors have kept their schools safe.”
Same goes for Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, whose head of communications told a local publication: “Nothing has changed on our end.”
“We have the weapons detection devices in all high schools and several middle schools. All middle schools will have the devices implemented within the next couple of months,” she added.
For Rio Rancho Public Schools in New Mexico, success with Evolv’s technology also outweighed any concerns with the settlement. “Our security personnel routinely perform accuracy tests with the equipment, and the results have exceeded our expectations. The Evolv systems have performed exactly how we anticipated they would,” their director of communications told KOAT News.
In Tennessee, a sheriff’s office issued a statement that it would “diligently evaluate other technologies before spending additional tax dollars on this technology” — but did not indicate it would consider cancelling its existing contract.
When Hunterbrook followed up after the FTC settlement with Bryan DalPorto, the Director of Security for Niagara Falls School District, he maintained confidence in Evolv as well. “I can tell you in our experience they were nothing but forthright,” he said. “I have every confidence in the world.”
“I can tell you in our experience they were nothing but forthright.”
Bryan DalPorto, Director of Security, Niagara Falls School District
And Fernandez, the Director of Safety and Security at Madera Unified School District who spoke with Hunterbrook, said he wouldn’t consider cancelling.
Fernandez claimed the company was up front with him about the limitations of the platform under certain settings, but did not take their word for it. Instead, he had law enforcement professionals walk through the machines with “every weapon imaginable” — and it worked.
While on lighter settings, he says, certain small knives could make it through Evolv Express, he said it was easy to calibrate the sensitivity of Evolv’s product to any given event. “From our initial use of it, we were detecting weapons and very satisfied with the results,” he said. “It’s been a blessing and we’ve just been lucky that nothing has happened.”
Fernandez, who spoke to Hunterbrook on Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, said to feel free to bother him over the holiday with any further questions — because he would be spending the weekend thinking about keeping kids safe either way.
“We’re having a championship game Friday,” he said, where 7500 members of the community were expected to show up. “And we’re bringing three Evolv units with us.”
We checked in with Fernandez the following Monday. At the game, one weapon was detected. It belonged to a law enforcement officer. “Everyone was safe.”
Authors
Michelle Cera is a sociologist specializing in digital ethnography and pedagogy. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology from New York University, building on her Bachelor of Arts degree with Highest Honors from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently serving as a Workshop Coordinator at NYU’s Anthropology and Sociology Departments, Michelle fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and advances innovative research methodologies.
Sam Koppelman is a New York Times best-selling author who has written books with former United States Attorney General Eric Holder and former United States Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal. Sam has published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Time Magazine, and other outlets — and occasionally volunteers on a fire speech for a good cause. He has a BA in Government from Harvard, where he was named a John Harvard Scholar and wrote op-eds like “Shut Down Harvard Football,” which he tells us were great for his social life. Sam is based in New York.
Editor
Jim Impoco is the award-winning former editor-in-chief of Newsweek who returned the publication to print in 2014. Before that, he was executive editor at Thomson Reuters Digital, Sunday Business Editor at The New York Times, and Assistant Managing Editor at Fortune. Jim, who started his journalism career as a Tokyo-based reporter for The Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report, has a Master’s in Chinese and Japanese History from the University of California at Berkeley.
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