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Flock Safety<\/a> and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced<\/a> Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation.<\/p>\n Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so on. It\u2019s best known for its automatic license plate recognition tech<\/a>, but Flock also makes gunshot detection tech marketed to schools, and recently acquired public safety drone company Aerodome<\/a>.<\/p>\n Flock was founded in 2017 and went through Y Combinator that same year. Growth exploded in the subsequent years. Flock crossed over $300 million in annual recurring revenue last year, which is 70% year-over-year growth, Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n The Atlanta-based startup has now raised over $950 million in total funding, according to Pitchbook data<\/a>, and its last valuation a year ago was $4.8 billion. Return investors Andreessen Horowitz, GreenOaks, Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, and YC participated in this round.<\/p>\n Given that it makes surveillance tech, Flock has unsurprisingly had its share of controversies. For instance, the ACLU cited concerns with Flock<\/a> over the kind of mass surveillance it enables and, a year ago, urged the company to allow independent review of its products. Privacy advocates in Norfolk, Virginia are currently suing<\/a> to stop Flock from being deployed there.<\/p>\n Flock is also facing a wrongful termination lawsuit from a sitting mayor of a small California town, as TechCrunch recently reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, Flock has been a VC darling for years.<\/p>\n For instance, Bedrock\u2019s 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 the first checks from Lewis\u2019 new firm. But Langley had just closed Flock\u2019s Series A.<\/p>\n That deal was a \u201ctotally insane\u201d $60 million valuation, as Bedrock described it<\/a> \u2014 about triple the valuation of the A round just a few months earlier. Langley took the money \u2014 and has gone on take over $164 million in investments from Bedrock since.<\/p>\n By the way, Lewis, who hailed from Founders Fund, now has other big names in Bedrock\u2019s portfolio, like OpenAI, Rippling, and Mach Industries.<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, a16z\u2019s American Dynamism fund lead, David Ulevitch, led other rounds for Flock.\u00a0\u201cBeyond protecting property, Flock Safety is literally helping to save lives,\u201d Ulevitch and a16z growth VC David George opined <\/a>in 2021.<\/p>\n YC\u2019s Garry Tan took to LinkedIn just a few months ago<\/a> to applaud the success rate Flock claims it has achieved in fighting crime.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s Flock\u2019s revenue growth, in addition to its public safety products, that\u2019s caused investors to \u201ccontinue to double and triple down on Flock,\u201d Beilin said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n