what we’re
all about

We founded Placemetry in 2025 to provide the data to build better cities. Before, it was costly and time-consuming for cities to gain a comprehensive picture of their built environment, making housing assessments and code violations piece-meal and inefficient. Now with Placemetry, we provide the data to make cities livable, equitable and sustainable. Our team of urban economists, AI experts and behavioral scientists is headquartered in San Diego, CA.

Placemetry Camera Promo Video 2026

PLACEMETRY

BUILDING BETTER CITIES AND ROADWAYS

We regularly drive cities and roadways across the US, capturing photos of properties and infrastructure from the public right-of-way with our vehicle-mounted cameras. We focus only on the built environment: faces are always blurred out. We feed these images into our advanced AI algorithms, which automatically identify issues with the property and infastructure, including quality and code violations.

With our data package, our clients get access to a photo and a list of issues for each property in their city. We generate a custom report with maps for comprehensive assessments and Priority Scores, which help clients focus on what matters most to them. Our clients use this data to evaluate urban progress, target clean-up and improvement efforts, or request more resources for their city.

FOR Cities

For cities, our solutions allow for more efficient deployment of resources with little disruption in work flow. The data that we provide can be integrated with existing departments, including public works, code enforcement, and transportation, to assess and highlight needs or problems. The different data packages can assist with city quality assessment, AI-powered code enforcement, and can help fast-track disaster response.

for insurance and real estate

Insurance and real estate companies find our data valuable as it allows them to make data-driven decisions. For example, real estate companies may use our data to identify investment opportunities or to manage their properties. Insurance companies may use our data for advanced analytics to improve their models, or to identify homes in need of mitigation to protect against natural disasters.

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Meet our Team

Erik Johnson

FOUNDER and CEO
Erik is a Ph.D. urban economist. Before founding Placemetry, Erik was the founder and former CEO of City Detect. Erik teaches classes on entrepreneurship and economics at UC-San Diego, and was previously a professor of urban economics at the University of Alabama, where he pioneered the use of AI in built environment imagery.
Anya Samek

COO
Anya is the COO of Placemetry and is an Associate Professor at the Rady School of Management, where she teaches courses in Strategy and Economics. At Placemetry, Anya applies her expertise in behavioral science to design strategies that turn individual actions into community-wide transformation.
Kirby Shields

FIELD DATA ASSOCIATE
Kirby is an entrepreneur with experience in sales and professional driving. Kirby applies his skills to many areas of our business, including data collection and sales.
Nick Luerding

SALES STRATEGIST
Nick has 10+ years of experience selling technology products in healthcare. He’s learned firsthand how data can improve outcomes and avoid risks. That’s why he’s now focused on the next frontier of impact: leveraging AI to transform cities.