Flock Safety and one among its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, introduced Thursday that the startup raised a recent $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation.
Flock makes laptop vision-enabled video surveillance know-how utilized by regulation enforcement in addition to companies, property administration corporations, and so forth. It’s greatest recognized for its computerized license plate recognition tech, however Flock additionally makes gunshot detection tech marketed to varsities, and lately acquired public security drone firm Aerodome.
Flock was based in 2017 and went by means of Y Combinator that very same 12 months. Growth exploded within the subsequent years. Flock crossed over $300 million in annual recurring income final 12 months, which is 70% year-over-year progress, Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin advised TechCrunch.
The Atlanta-based startup has now raised over $950 million in complete funding, in keeping with Pitchbook information, and its final valuation a 12 months in the past was $4.8 billion. Return buyers Andreessen Horowitz, GreenOaks, Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, and YC participated on this spherical.
Given that it makes surveillance tech, Flock has unsurprisingly had its share of controversies. For occasion, the ACLU cited issues with Flock over the sort of mass surveillance it permits and, a 12 months in the past, urged the corporate to permit impartial evaluate of its merchandise. Privacy advocates in Norfolk, Virginia are at present suing to cease Flock from being deployed there.
Flock can be going through a wrongful termination lawsuit from a sitting mayor of a small California city, as TechCrunch lately reported.
That stated, Flock has been a VC darling for years.
For occasion, Bedrock’s founder, Geoff Lewis, recounted how he flew to Atlanta in 2018 to beg Flock co-founder Garrett Langley to take a $10 million Series A-1, one of many first checks from Lewis’ new agency. But Langley had simply closed Flock’s Series A.
That deal was a “completely insane” $60 million valuation, as Bedrock described it — about triple the valuation of the A spherical only a few months earlier. Langley took the cash — and has gone on take over $164 million in investments from Bedrock since.
By the way in which, Lewis, who hailed from Founders Fund, now has different massive names in Bedrock’s portfolio, like OpenAI, Rippling, and Mach Industries.
Meanwhile, a16z’s American Dynamism fund lead, David Ulevitch, led different rounds for Flock. “Beyond defending property, Flock Safety is actually serving to to save lots of lives,” Ulevitch and a16z progress VC David George opined in 2021.
YC’s Garry Tan took to LinkedIn only a few months in the past to applaud the success price Flock claims it has achieved in preventing crime.
But it’s Flock’s income progress, along with its public security merchandise, that’s brought about buyers to “proceed to double and triple down on Flock,” Beilin stated.
