If you ever call 911 from an area that is difficult to reach, you can hear the buzzing of a drone long before a police crossing is drawn. And there is a good chance that will be the one made by Brinc Drones, a Seattle-based startup founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, who came out of the college to run the company.
Brinc, who was founded in 2017 and counts Openai Sam Altman’s CEO as an investor in the seed phase, just announced today that he has collected $ 75 million in new funds led by Index Ventures.
This brings the total starting fund to $ 157.2 million. While Brinc is not revealing its accurate rating, Resnick told Techcrunch that it is a “up” compared to its most recent round, a $ 55 million series in 2022. Brinc was last estimated at $ 300 million in 2023, Bloomberg reported.
Brink sells a variety of drone systems for police and public safety agencies. Party part of a broader tendency of American drone startups that produce domestically due to increased restrictions on Chinese companies that prevail industry of trade drones. (Resnick was briefly interned in DJI, so far the greatest Chinese player, a few years before he founded Brinc.)
With this funding, Brink is launching a “strategic alliance” with the Solutions Motorola, who also invested in the round. Motorola Solutions is a giant in the US security industry, whose software strengthens many 911 call centers. The partnership will integrate Brink drones directly into those centers, allowing operators to send drones for urgent calls if they are cleaned by an existing Motorola AI.
However, Brink is in an increasingly competitive area with other US beginnings such as Kopy and Skydio security. Everyone also offers drones to the police, and has multibillion dollars ratings. Flock stayed at $ 7.5 billion in its last round last month while Skydio was rated at $ 2.2 billion in 2023.
When it comes to competition, Resnick tells Techcrunch that there is a lot of room for growth in a market that is dominated by Chinese players. Beyond the Motorola partnership, he says Brink offers its share of unique features, such as the ability to break windows or provide urgent medical equipment.
