Former Thiel Fellow’s Startup Just Launched a Drone It Says Could Replace Police Helicopters | TechCrunch

When I talk to Blake Resnick, he’s walking around his drone startup’s new offices in Seattle — a cavernous 50,000-square-foot facility that Resnick estimates won’t be fully installed until later in the year — potentially in November. Yet the large (and currently largely empty) building offers the promise of a fast-growing company determined to conquer its particular industry.

The industry in question is public safety, and the startup is called Brinc, which sells drones to police and public agencies across the United States. The company wants to be the “DJI of the West,” as Resnick put it — a nod to the Chinese drone maker and a signal that Resnick wants Brinc to also become synonymous with the technology it sells.

An old Thiel Fellow — a prestigious program that funds young entrepreneurs to skip or defer college — Resnick founded Brinc in 2017 and soon after attracted the interest of then-OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who ultimately served as one of Brinc’s leaders. early startup investors. Since then, Brinc has benefited from several funding rounds and, in its last round, was valued at nearly half a billion dollars, Resnick told me.

Brinc launched its new product On Tuesday, a new public safety drone called Guardian that Resnick said is “the closest thing to a police helicopter replacement that the drone industry has ever produced.” Brinc claims it is the “most capable 9/11 response drone in the world.”

Guardian certainly comes with formidable specs and capabilities. The drone can fly at speeds of up to 60 mph and support a flight time of 62 minutes, says its creator. It is also equipped with thermal cameras, as well as two additional 4K cameras, all with zoom capabilities. “Even at a significant altitude, a police department could read, for example, the license plate details,” Resnick told me. Additionally, there is a spotlight and a speaker with more volume than a police siren.

The drone’s landing station (which Brinc calls a “charging nest”) offers battery swapand can be stocked with essential safety supplies such as defibrillators, flotation devices, and Narcan, all without human intervention.

Guardian also comes with a Starlink panel integrated directly into its body, making it, according to Brinc, the first public safety drone with such a capability. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, offers drone connectivity anywhere in the world. “Starlink has never been integrated into a commercially produced quadcopter before, so [it] gives this cell unlimited reach anywhere in the world,” Resnick told me.

Resnick clearly sees public safety as a big opportunity. “There are about 20,000 police departments in America, 30,000 fire departments, 80,000 police officers and fire stations – and we think the top half of that market in the future will have a 911 response drone in a charging nest on the roof,” he said. “It certainly looks like we’re looking at a $6 billion to $8 billion market opportunity,” he said, assessing markets in the United States and other countries.

On this front, Brinc recently partner with the National League of Cities as part of a program to expand “drone as a first responder” programs in communities across the country – a move that will surely help foster relationships between the startup and communities that could ultimately become customers.

Additionally, Resnick believes that recent geopolitical developments have worked in his company’s favor. Until recently, DJI enjoyed a unofficial monopoly in the global drone market, including in the United States, where security agencies have long counted on the products of the Chinese company. However, the Trump administration recently banned foreign-made drone models to enter the country, opening up a huge potential market.

“There is a huge need for a Western DJI or a leading drone manufacturer in the free world, and ultimately that’s what we want to be,” Resnick says.

View biography