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, based on 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 device 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 no less than six a16z portfolio corporations. TechCrunch realized 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 no less than $7.6 million to fund police division purchases over the previous couple of years, based on a publish he revealed 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 develop and enhance the LVMPD’s health club, based on the emails and his publish.
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 widespread and controversial strategy taken by a number of the largest departments across the nation.
Consultants and advocates on police accountability and surveillance informed TechCrunch that police foundations bypass the everyday procurement course of that may embody public conferences, a city-approved price range, and a possible bidding interval to present opponents 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 Know-how Oversight Mission, stated in an interview.
Fox Cahn and others additionally stated donations can arrange corporations for ongoing contracts the place taxpayers foot the invoice. And so they say it will probably tilt the enjoying area. In Skydio’s case, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division owned merchandise from no less than three different drone corporations earlier than Horowitz’s donation, a previous public data request revealed.
Horowitz argued in his publish that the general public sector usually has “trouble budgeting” for brand 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 common 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 stated there was “nothing more for Ben to share beyond his blog post.” An unnamed consultant of the LVMPD’s public data workplace stated 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 stated 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 residence 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 informed 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 new pc terminals and $120,000 for the health club, tossing in cash for brand new ice and cappuccino machines, he wrote in his publish.
He additionally began connecting Vegas police with a16z portfolio corporations. 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 staff entry their pay earlier than payday, the emails present.
The LVMPD didn’t simply blindly settle for his donated expertise, although, based on the emails.
Horowitz informed 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 gradual to offer pricing data and there have been questions on whether or not Toka’s expertise would work properly with a few of LVMPD’s cameras, based on the emails.
LVMPD management wished their inside enterprise and expertise 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 informed TechCrunch that LVMPD “has never been a client or user of our products.”
How Horowitz guided the Skydio deal
The Skydio deal wasn’t easy both. Horowitz had donated the cash for the LVMPD to purchase Skydio drones earlier than 2023, based on 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 corporations Autel, Brinc, and Skyfront, based on a earlier public data 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 staff 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 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 client drones that 12 months, betting its future on authorities, protection, and legislation enforcement. This meant all of their stock must meet the next normal: police drones often want longer battery lives and higher cameras, in addition to further expertise like thermal sensors.
It was an costly guess. In keeping with a 2024 pitch deck ready by Skydio investor Linse Capital that was considered by TechCrunch, the drone firm forecasted that it might burn via no less than $238 million by 2029, primarily based on elements like elevated manufacturing and growth into new industries and geographies. Linse Capital was extra pessimistic about Skydio’s wants, based on the deck. It forecasted Skydio might plow via no less than $348 million within the subsequent 5 years on its approach to profitability. A Skydio consultant stated that these figures are usually not in any Skydio pitch decks and that the agency can’t validate them. Linse Capital declined to remark.
Horowitz, nevertheless, expressed shock on the giant scope of Skydio’s proposal to the LVMPD, particularly its suggestion to place docks on colleges, based on 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 had 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 data workplace stated 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, stated the corporate had no data of Horowitz funding the LVMPD’s acquisition of a16z portfolio corporations’ merchandise. She informed 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, based on 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 stated 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 through 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 non-public residents and companies a approach to donate cash that can be utilized to purchase issues for police departments. Their use has exploded lately, 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 Shade 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 stated.
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 number of the packages it funds, it doesn’t point out the a16z corporations, nor does it say how a lot cash goes to anyone effort.
What little they do disclose lags behind the real-world deployment. The newest public filings for both basis solely cowl exercise via as late as June 2023.
“Welcome to the wonderful, dystopian land of Police Foundations,” Fox Cahn, the surveillance advocate, stated.
Fox Cahn added that, usually, the donations can arrange corporations for profitable ongoing contracts with the police pressure, sidestepping opponents. 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 stated.
“It becomes really just impossible for voters — for the public – to hold people accountable,” he stated.
Horowitz has justified his involvement with the LVMPD by pointing to dropping crime charges within the metropolis — which he says is going on thanks, partially, to his donations. In his publish, he claimed that 911 calls are being answered quicker and that, due to Flock Security, 17% extra suspects are being arrested.
However Horowitz didn’t say within the publish the place he obtained 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 automobiles 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 in a position to give them extra data 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.”
