Startup of the week:

Who they are: Flock, a neighborhood security startup funded by a local accelerator.

What they do: Install solar-powered, license-plate-reading cameras in neighborhoods to track who comes and goes. The idea is to let police use that information as evidence when a crime occurs in the area.

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The pregnancy wearable that tracks contractions Why it’s cool: About 80 percent of property crimes and half of violent crimes go unsolved, according to FBI data from 2015. Flock wants to change that.

The cameras, which also have backup batteries, already have logged useful evidence in two cases, said Flock founder and CEO Garrett Langley. On Tuesday night, a man’s lawnmower was stolen from his yard in a neighborhood outside Atlanta that uses Flock technology. The man saw a pickup truck speeding away from his house with his mower in the back. Flock found a truck in its records that had left the neighborhood around the time of the theft, and gave its license plate number to police — hopefully making it easy for them to make an arrest.

Flock had a similar success story a few weeks ago after a bicycle was stolen from a resident’s garage. The startup’s camera captured footage of the suspect driving away with the bike hanging out of the car, and snagged the license plate number. Police recently told Langley it’s only a matter of time before they make an arrest.

Flock usually works with homeowners associations or neighborhood associations to install its cameras. The cameras are free, but Flock charges on average between $25 and $50 per home per year for its service.

Flock doesn’t monitor the footage, and only pulls images if a crime is reported. All data is deleted after 30 days.

Langley says it’s not invading residents’ privacy — a person has no expectation of privacy when he or she is on a public road, he points out.

Where they stand: Expect to see Flock cameras popping up in Bay Area cities soon. Flock launched three months ago and now has contracts with seven cities — all of which are in the Atlanta area. But the company is hoping to install its cameras in the Bay Area next, targeting Hillsborough and other local cities within the next six to eight weeks.

Flock debuted in August at startup accelerator Y Combinator’s demo day in Mountain View. Learn more at flocksafety.com.

What will they think of next?

How smart is your cookware? Probably not as smart as SmartyPans. This Bay Area-based startup aims to make cooking for one more social by adding high-tech sensors and connectivity to a basic frying pan.

Here’s how it works: as you cook, you tell the SmartyPans companion app what ingredients you’re adding, and the pan uses weight and temperature sensors and a timer to tell how much of each ingredient you added, how long you cooked it and at what temperature. The device saves your recipe and lets you share it with other SmartyPans users. It also tracks each meal’s nutrition, and lets you sync that data with your fitness tracker.

“With SmartyPans, you’re never cooking alone,” the company’s video boasts.

But it doesn’t come cheap — the devices sells for $229. Visit: smartypans.io.

Run the numbers:

Where should you go to school if you have aspirations of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg? Just like last year, the answer is Stanford. The Palo Alto school once again topped the PitchBook list of top universities for start-up founders, producing 1,127 undergraduate, venture capital-backed entrepreneurs since 2006. Those founders have created 957 companies, and raised $22.6 billion. UC Berkeley was a close second, followed by the MIT and Harvard.