When Skydio, a younger maker of drones in San Mateo, California, despatched a buyer proposal in 2023 to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division, its chief of workers, Mike Gennaro, forwarded the e-mail to VC Ben Horowitz.
“Which deployment are you looking to do?” Horowitz wrote again.
“Whatever you want, Ben,” Gennaro replied, in keeping with emails seen by TechCrunch.
Horowitz then despatched cash to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division’s (LVMPD) police basis to buy Skydio drones for the division.
It was a win-win, seemingly. Skydio was in a position to tout its relationship with the LVMPD, whereas the division acquired a brand new instrument to battle crime. In a weblog publish detailing the partnership, Skydio praised the LVMPD’s option to undertake its X10 drones as being “driven by the ambitious vision of making Las Vegas the safest community in America.”
They didn’t point out Horowitz, although the VC’s relationship with the LVMPD runs deeper than simply funding the Skydio drones.
The enterprise capitalist has facilitated communication between the LVMPD and a minimum of six a16z portfolio firms. TechCrunch discovered about this relationship after receiving over 100 emails between Horowitz and the division, in addition to inside police emails about his donations primarily between January 2023 and July 2024, in a public data request.
In complete, the investor has donated a minimum of $7.6 million to fund police division purchases over the previous few years, in keeping with a publish he printed on a16z’s weblog in mid-October after studying about TechCrunch’s receipt of the general public data. He and his spouse Felicia have additionally paid to broaden and enhance the LVMPD’s gymnasium, in keeping with the emails and his publish.
Horowitz isn’t alone on this method to supporting police. Soliciting donations to police foundations to cowl the price of particular tools purchases is an more and more standard and controversial method taken by a few of the largest departments across the nation.
Specialists and advocates on police accountability and surveillance advised TechCrunch that police foundations bypass the standard procurement course of that may embrace public conferences, a city-approved funds, and a possible bidding interval to provide rivals an opportunity.
“It’s horrifying from a good government perspective, from a nonprofit [and] ethics perspective, and just really has become such a major part of how novel police technologies are advertised and marketed,” Albert Fox Cahn, founder and govt director of the Surveillance Expertise Oversight Challenge, mentioned in an interview.
Fox Cahn and others additionally mentioned donations can arrange firms for ongoing contracts the place taxpayers foot the invoice. They usually say it might probably tilt the enjoying discipline. In Skydio’s case, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division owned merchandise from a minimum of three different drone firms earlier than Horowitz’s donation, a previous public data request revealed.
Horowitz argued in his publish that the general public sector typically has “trouble budgeting” for brand spanking new strategic know-how, so “by donating the technology, I am able to give LVMPD a running start.”
His method was praised by David Ulevitch, a normal companion at a16z, which backed Skydio. “What @bhorowitz and Felicia have done in Vegas is a masterclass in philanthropy and impact,” Ulevitch wrote. “I hope it catches on in cities across America as a model to bring great technology to public safety and bootstrap the process.”
TechCrunch requested Horowitz for an interview and despatched an inventory of questions for this story, however he didn’t reply. Andreessen Horowitz spokesperson Grace Ellis declined to reply the questions, and mentioned there was “nothing more for Ben to share beyond his blog post.” An unnamed consultant of the LVMPD’s public info workplace mentioned the division “is grateful to the private citizens who provide funding for various projects throughout the department,” and declined to reply additional questions.
Paying for Prepared911, Flock Security and extra
For Horowitz’s spouse Felicia, California in 2020 was starting to look an excessive amount of like her previous. The 2 had lived within the prosperous Bay Space city of Atherton, California, for years. However Felicia had grown up exterior of Los Angeles, in Compton and Carson, California, the place she “saw many of her friends murdered,” Horowitz mentioned in his weblog publish.
Between Prop. 47, a 2014 California coverage that reclassified some felonies as misdemeanors, and politicians’ short-lived pledges to slash police budgets, Felicia felt she was watching her house state deteriorate in actual time. “The new policies — defund the police, don’t prosecute crime — are destroying the communities where I grew up,” she was quoted saying in The Wall Avenue Journal. “If you want to genocide black people, the California policies are a great blueprint.”
Felicia wished out of California and Horowitz was intrigued by Las Vegas. The town, he advised a Substack publication, promised “the Raiders, amazing restaurants, and world class entertainment.”
Horowitz bought his Las Vegas residence, and his enterprise companion, Marc Andreessen, reportedly purchased a $36 million vacant plot 9 minutes down the street. By early 2023, the emails present Horowitz had begun making private strategies about merchandise to the police division and was quickly writing checks. The couple donated $800,000 for brand spanking new laptop terminals and $120,000 for the gymnasium, tossing in cash for brand spanking new ice and cappuccino machines, he wrote in his publish.
He additionally began connecting Vegas police with a16z portfolio firms. Along with Skydio, he donated $400,000 for the police division to accumulate know-how from Ready, an a16z firm that makes use of AI to assist with 911 calls, and an unspecified quantity for surveillance cameras from Flock Security, one other a16z firm. Horowitz additionally arrange introductions for safe communications startup Kodex, and Earnin’, which helps workers entry their pay earlier than payday, the emails present.
The LVMPD didn’t simply blindly settle for his donated know-how, although, in keeping with the emails.
Horowitz advised Gennaro in an August 2023 e mail that he would make a donation for the division to accumulate know-how from Toka, an a16z-backed cybersecurity firm. However police management had considerations. The startup was gradual to offer pricing info and there have been questions on whether or not Toka’s know-how would work nicely with a few of LVMPD’s cameras, in keeping with the emails.
LVMPD management wished their inside enterprise and know-how governance board to evaluation the tech earlier than even receiving a Toka demo and warned there is likely to be a “lengthy” clearance approval course of.
Whereas it isn’t clear why, a deal was by no means labored out: A spokesperson for Toka advised TechCrunch that LVMPD “has never been a client or user of our products.”
How Horowitz guided the Skydio deal
The Skydio deal wasn’t simple both. Horowitz had donated the cash for the LVMPD to purchase Skydio drones earlier than 2023, in keeping with emails considered by TechCrunch. Beforehand, the police power owned a handful of X2 Skydio drones, issued from 2020 to 2022, in addition to drones from firms Autel, Brinc, and Skyfront, in keeping with a earlier public data request.
In a 2023 e mail to chief of workers Gennaro, Brad Cupp, then-Las Vegas police sergeant, mirrored on the X2 Skydio drones. He wrote that they confirmed a “tremendous amount of promise,” however “fell short of what we needed operationally.”
In the identical e mail, Cupp wrote that the Skydio group had listened to LVMPD’s suggestions, creating a brand new drone that “has the potential to truly be a game changer,” he wrote. “I’m hoping you will be able to assist upgrading all or part of our fleet of Skydios.”
Gennaro forwarded the message to Horowitz, asking for assist. A couple of months later, Skydio formally introduced their new drone, the X10, and despatched over a proposal to LVMPD for drones and drone docks — a touchdown pad for drones stationed all through the town — in hopes that Horowitz would donate the tools to the police power.
This potential deal took on a newfound significance after the corporate stopped promoting shopper drones that 12 months, betting its future on authorities, protection, and legislation enforcement. This meant all of their stock must meet the next commonplace: police drones often want longer battery lives and higher cameras, in addition to further know-how like thermal sensors.
It was an costly wager. Based on a 2024 pitch deck ready by Skydio investor Linse Capital that was considered by TechCrunch, the drone firm forecasted that it might burn by way of a minimum of $238 million by 2029, based mostly on components like elevated manufacturing and enlargement into new industries and geographies. Linse Capital was extra pessimistic about Skydio’s wants, in keeping with the deck. It forecasted Skydio might plow by way of a minimum of $348 million within the subsequent 5 years on its method to profitability. A Skydio consultant mentioned that these figures aren’t in any Skydio pitch decks and that the agency can’t validate them. Linse Capital declined to remark.
Horowitz, nonetheless, expressed shock on the massive scope of Skydio’s proposal to the LVMPD, particularly its suggestion to place docks on colleges, in keeping with the emails.
“I thought that we just wanted this for the 11 neighborhoods,” Horowitz emailed Gennaro, the “we” referring to the police division and himself, because the one footing the invoice. “They bid the schools too. Is that what we asked for?”
Gennaro defined that extra drones have been crucial in higher-crime neighborhoods, although a lot of the e-mail was redacted, together with his response to placing docks on colleges. Gennaro ended the e-mail by deferring to his donor’s judgment.
“We can adjust however you see fit,” he wrote. An unnamed consultant of the LVMPD’s public info workplace mentioned that no drone docks have at present been put in in LVMPD’s jurisdiction.
Three months later, when Horowitz pitched Gennaro on one other a16z portfolio firm, Kodex, he included a caveat: “If it’s a good idea, I am happy to help, but let’s not let the company know that,” Horowitz emailed. “We don’t need another Skyd.io proposal lol.”
Stacy Wang, Kodex’s head of selling, mentioned the corporate had no information of Horowitz funding the LVMPD’s acquisition of a16z portfolio firms’ merchandise. She advised TechCrunch that Kodex is “free to use” for all legislation enforcement businesses.
Horowitz’s elevated proximity to the LVMPD has had different ripple results for the businesses he’s invested in. Across the similar time that Skydio publicized its partnership with the LVMPD, Sergeant Cupp, who had evangelized the corporate’s drones internally, left the division for a brand new gig, in keeping with his LinkedIn profile: Program supervisor at Skydio.
“You are going to get caught”
Andreessen Horowitz held its 2023 LP Summit — an occasion for the individuals who put money into the agency’s funds — in Las Vegas. The town’s sheriff, Kevin McMahill, donning his police uniform, sat onstage between Flock Security founder Garrett Langley and a16z’s Ulevitch. McMahill couldn’t maintain again his glee as he spoke about utilizing a16z-backed applied sciences.
“Every piece of that technology is the equivalent of three police officers,” he mentioned of Flock’s merchandise, including: “Bad guys know that when you come to Las Vegas, because of our abilities — technology being at the forefront of it — you are going to get caught.”
McMahill additionally touted LVMPD’s dedication to transparency in the course of the speak. However he didn’t point out the opaque instrument the division used to accumulate these applied sciences: police foundations.
These foundations are sometimes arrange as tax-exempt nonprofits, and provides personal residents and firms a method to donate cash that can be utilized to purchase issues for police departments. Their use has exploded in recent times, with police foundations in main cities like New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Atlanta producing tens of millions of {dollars} in annual income.
Evan Feeney, senior director of campaigns and organizing at Shade Of Change, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group that has printed analysis on police foundations, referred to as them a “legal loophole” in an interview with TechCrunch. “Billionaires should not be allowed to buy access and influence with law enforcement,” he mentioned.
Transparency, or lack of it, is a major concern advocates like Feeney have with the usage of police foundations.
To wit, Horowitz used his private basis to donate $2 million to the Las Vegas police basis in 2023. However his basis’s tax submitting vaguely described the “purpose” of the donation as “support of police.”
The Las Vegas police basis, in the meantime, doesn’t publish a full rundown of its donors. And whereas it maintains a web site that lists a few of the applications it funds, it doesn’t point out the a16z firms, nor does it say how a lot cash goes to anyone effort.
What little they do disclose lags behind the real-world deployment. The latest public filings for both basis solely cowl exercise by way of as late as June 2023.
“Welcome to the wonderful, dystopian land of Police Foundations,” Fox Cahn, the surveillance advocate, mentioned.
Fox Cahn added that, typically, the donations can arrange firms for profitable ongoing contracts with the police power, sidestepping rivals. After an preliminary donation, “they can then try to both sell the [police] on a follow-up contract but also then use the fact that [police] are deploying a technology for advertising,” he mentioned.
“It becomes really just impossible for voters — for the public – to hold people accountable,” he mentioned.
Horowitz has justified his involvement with the LVMPD by pointing to dropping crime charges within the metropolis — which he says is going on thanks, partly, to his donations. In his publish, he claimed that 911 calls are being answered sooner and that, because of Flock Security, 17% extra suspects are being arrested.
However Horowitz didn’t say within the publish the place he acquired these statistics, and he declined to reply when TechCrunch requested. The LVMPD referred TechCrunch to its public crime statistics, which don’t line up with Horowitz’s figures.
Sheriff McMahill is a believer. On the LP Summit, he recalled a taking pictures the place all they knew was there have been two automobiles with a number of weapons firing. The case appeared hopeless till he used Flock Security know-how, which incorporates gunshot detection and license plate recognition software program, which was in a position to give them extra info on the scene and assist them to catch the shooters.
“This technology is changing the game,” McMahill declared to the gang of a16z buyers. “We are going to get to a place at some point where it becomes impossible to commit a crime.”
