Nearhuman Raises £350,000 for AI Cameras That Monitor Shared Scooter Safety

Shared scooter fleets could gain a new source of street-level safety evidence without replacing their vehicles. Bristol startup Nearhuman announced £350,000 in pre-seed funding on October 6, 2026, led by SFC Capital. The money will support AI camera hardware for shared e-scooters and e-bikes, with a live Bristol pilot already testing the approach.

The missing evidence from the street

Nearhuman’s starting point is a gap in what fleet operators and councils can see: where vehicles are ridden and what happens around them. The company argues that limited direct evidence makes it harder to understand unsafe riding, pedestrian close calls and the condition of the streets vehicles use.

Its funding announcement cites Department for Transport figures showing e-scooter casualties in Great Britain rising from 454 in 2020 to 1,477 in 2025. Nearhuman presents its technology as one contribution to a safety effort that also involves infrastructure, rider education, enforcement and vehicle design—not a replacement for those measures.

Founder and chief executive Faizan Mir studied robotics at UWE Bristol before starting Nearhuman. The company is based at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, and its first commercial application focuses on shared scooter and bike fleets.

Technology on its own won't fix that. Better streets, education and enforcement all matter. What we can do is help give operators and councils clearer evidence, with privacy built into the hardware.

Faizan Mir, Nearhuman founder and chief executive

A camera added to the existing fleet

Nearhuman is developing a camera module that fits onto vehicles already in service. Its on-device AI—software running on the vehicle itself—is designed to detect pavement riding, close calls with pedestrians and road hazards as they happen. Those are intended capabilities, rather than published findings from the pilot.

The company says footage is processed and redacted on board, so sensitive video does not need to leave the vehicle. That privacy design is part of an approach intended to work with limited computing power and reduce reliance on continuous cloud connectivity.

The immediate aim is to supply operators with safety insights without requiring a new fleet. Further ahead, Nearhuman wants vehicles already travelling through cities to gather information for councils about roads, cycle lanes and pavements. That council-facing use remains an ambition, not a disclosed deployment.

Bristol provides the real-world test

The live pilot in Bristol is testing the system in real-world conditions, according to Nearhuman. Its announcement does not include detection accuracy figures or pilot outcomes. For now, the disclosed milestone is an on-street trial backed by new financing, rather than demonstrated safety improvements.

Nearhuman says the funding will cover product development, on-street testing and commercial deployment. Those spending priorities put hardware development and field testing alongside the work of bringing the system to fleet customers.