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 employees, 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 line 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 capable of tout its relationship with the LVMPD, whereas the division acquired a brand new device to combat crime. In a weblog put up 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, even if 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 realized about this relationship after receiving over 100 emails between Horowitz and the division, in addition to inner police emails about his donations primarily between January 2023 and July 2024, in a public information request.
In complete, the investor has donated a minimum of $7.6 million to fund police division purchases over the previous few years, in line with a put up he revealed on a16z’s weblog in mid-October after studying about TechCrunch’s receipt of the general public information. He and his spouse Felicia have additionally paid to increase and enhance the LVMPD’s fitness center, in line with the emails and his put up.
Horowitz isn’t alone on this strategy to supporting police. Soliciting donations to police foundations to cowl the price of particular tools purchases is an more and more well-liked and controversial strategy taken by a few of the largest departments across the nation.
Consultants and advocates on police accountability and surveillance instructed 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 government director of the Surveillance Expertise Oversight Mission, mentioned in an interview.
Fox Cahn and others additionally mentioned donations can arrange firms for ongoing contracts the place taxpayers foot the invoice. And so they say it will possibly tilt the taking part in subject. 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 information request revealed.
Horowitz argued in his put up that the general public sector typically has “trouble budgeting” for brand spanking new strategic expertise, so “by donating the technology, I am able to give LVMPD a running start.”
His strategy was praised by David Ulevitch, a normal associate 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 a listing 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 outdoors of Los Angeles, in Compton and Carson, California, the place she “saw many of her friends murdered,” Horowitz mentioned in his weblog put up.
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 dwelling 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. Town, he instructed a Substack publication, promised “the Raiders, amazing restaurants, and world class entertainment.”
Horowitz bought his Las Vegas residence, and his enterprise associate, Marc Andreessen, reportedly purchased a $36 million vacant plot 9 minutes down the highway. By early 2023, the emails present Horowitz had begun making private recommendations about merchandise to the police division and was quickly writing checks. The couple donated $800,000 for brand spanking new pc terminals and $120,000 for the fitness center, tossing in cash for brand spanking new ice and cappuccino machines, he wrote in his put up.
He additionally began connecting Vegas police with a16z portfolio firms. Along with Skydio, he donated $400,000 for the police division to amass expertise 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 expertise, although, in line with the emails.
Horowitz instructed Gennaro in an August 2023 e mail that he would make a donation for the division to amass expertise from Toka, an a16z-backed cybersecurity firm. However police management had issues. The startup was sluggish to supply pricing info and there have been questions on whether or not Toka’s expertise would work nicely with a few of LVMPD’s cameras, in line with the emails.
LVMPD management wished their inner enterprise and expertise governance board to overview 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 instructed 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 line with emails considered by TechCrunch. Beforehand, the police pressure owned a handful of X2 Skydio drones, issued from 2020 to 2022, in addition to drones from firms Autel, Brinc, and Skyfront, in line with a earlier public information request.
In a 2023 e mail to chief of employees 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 number 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 town — in hopes that Horowitz would donate the tools to the police pressure.
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 a better customary: police drones normally want longer battery lives and higher cameras, in addition to further expertise like thermal sensors.
It was an costly wager. In response to a 2024 pitch deck ready by Skydio investor Linse Capital that was considered by TechCrunch, the drone firm forecasted that it might burn by a minimum of $238 million by 2029, based mostly on elements like elevated manufacturing and growth into new industries and geographies. Linse Capital was extra pessimistic about Skydio’s wants, in line with the deck. It forecasted Skydio might plow by a minimum of $348 million within the subsequent 5 years on its option to profitability. A Skydio consultant mentioned that these figures usually are not in any Skydio pitch decks and that the agency can not validate them. Linse Capital declined to remark.
Horowitz, nevertheless, expressed shock on the massive scope of Skydio’s proposal to the LVMPD, particularly its suggestion to place docks on faculties, in line 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 essential in higher-crime neighborhoods, although a lot of the e-mail was redacted, together with his response to placing docks on faculties. 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 presently 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 promoting, mentioned the corporate had no data of Horowitz funding the LVMPD’s acquisition of a16z portfolio firms’ merchandise. She instructed 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 line 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 spend money on the agency’s funds — in Las Vegas. 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 throughout the discuss. However he didn’t point out the opaque device the division used to amass these applied sciences: police foundations.
These foundations are sometimes arrange as tax-exempt nonprofits, and provides personal residents and companies a option 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 hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in annual income.
Evan Feeney, senior director of campaigns and organizing at Colour Of Change, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group that has revealed 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 main 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 packages it funds, it doesn’t point out the a16z firms, nor does it say how a lot cash goes to anybody effort.
What little they do disclose lags behind the real-world deployment. The newest public filings for both basis solely cowl exercise by 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 pressure, 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 put up, he claimed that 911 calls are being answered quicker and that, because of Flock Security, 17% extra suspects are being arrested.
However Horowitz didn’t say within the put up 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 capturing the place all they knew was there have been two vehicles with a number of weapons firing. The case appeared hopeless till he used Flock Security expertise, which incorporates gunshot detection and license plate recognition software program, which was capable of 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.”
