Flock Security and one in every of 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 firms, and so forth. It’s finest identified for its automated license plate recognition tech, however Flock additionally makes gunshot detection tech marketed to colleges, and lately acquired public security drone firm Aerodome.
Flock was based in 2017 and went by way of Y Combinator that very same 12 months. Progress 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, based on PitchBook knowledge, and its final valuation a 12 months in the past was $4.8 billion. Return buyers Andreessen Horowitz, Greenoaks, Meritech Capital, Matrix Companions, and Y Combinator participated on this spherical.
Provided that it makes surveillance tech, Flock has unsurprisingly had its share of controversies. As an example, the ACLU cited considerations with Flock over the type of mass surveillance it allows and, a 12 months in the past, urged the corporate to permit impartial evaluation of its merchandise. Privateness advocates in Norfolk, Virginia are at the moment 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.
As an example, Bedrock’s founder, Geoff Lewis, recounted how he flew to Atlanta in 2018 to beg Flock co-founder Garrett Langley (pictured above) to take a $10 million Sequence A-1, one of many first checks from Lewis’ new agency. However Langley had simply closed Flock’s Sequence A.
That deal was a “completely insane” $60 million valuation, as Bedrock described it — about triple the valuation of the A spherical just some months earlier. Langley took the cash — and has gone on to take greater than $164 million in investments from Bedrock since.
By the way in which, Lewis, who hailed from Founders Fund, now has different huge names in Bedrock’s portfolio, like OpenAI, Rippling, and Mach Industries.
In the meantime, a16z’s American Dynamism fund lead, David Ulevitch, led different rounds for Flock. “Past defending property, Flock Security is actually serving to to avoid wasting lives,” Ulevitch and a16z progress VC David George opined in 2021.
YC’s Garry Tan took to LinkedIn simply a number of months in the past to applaud the success charge Flock claims it has achieved in preventing crime.
Nevertheless it’s Flock’s income progress, along with its public security merchandise, that’s precipitated buyers to “proceed to double and triple down on Flock,” Beilin stated.
