A 38-year-old CEO with no prior experience in police technology is taking on one of America’s most powerful law enforcement companies. Garrett Langley, founder of surveillance company Flock Safety, previously partnered with Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ:AXON) before the relationship ended earlier this year over pricing and competition concerns, Forbes reported.
The Atlanta-based entrepreneur now oversees more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras across 49 states, helping solve an estimated 1 million crimes annually. His $7.5 billion company has built a private surveillance network while setting the goal of eliminating virtually all crime within a decade.
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The Surveillance Empire That Started in a Garage
Langley had zero experience in law enforcement technology when he co-founded Flock Safety in 2017 alongside fellow Georgia Tech graduates Matt Feury and Paige Todd, Forbes reported. Their previous venture, a sports and concert seat upgrade app, had been acquired by Cox Enterprises.
The trio’s first prototype consisted of an Android phone camera stuffed into a waterproof box. The crude device could photograph passing vehicles and extract license plate numbers through a basic app. Despite its simplicity, the concept proved revolutionary.
“That took some time to figure out,” Ilya Sukhar, early investor in Flock Safety, a partner at the venture capital company Matrix and also on Flock Safety's board, told Forbes.
By 2020, the team had improved on their vision, which meant solar-powered, weatherproof cameras that could capture license plates and vehicle details around the clock, transmitting data instantly to Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) cloud servers for analysis.
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Each Flock Safety license plate reader costs between $3,000 and $3,500, plus additional fees for a software based on user count or camera deployment. According to Forbes, the Dunwoody Police Department in Georgia pays approximately $500,000 annually for its array of 105 cameras, gunshot detectors, drones, and accompanying software.
The $100 Billion Vision Faces Growing Opposition
Langley told Forbes he wants to build Flock Safety into a $100 billion enterprise. Revenue jumped approximately 70% from an estimated $175 million in 2023, supported by a $275 million March funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
“It’s very within reach,” Langley said about the massive valuation target, noting the company landed on Forbes’ 2025 Cloud 100 list of top private cloud computing firms.
Beyond law enforcement, Flock Safety serves 1,000 corporate clients, including FedEx (NYSE:FDX), Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW), and Simon Property (NYSE:SPG), America’s largest mall owner. Housing associations, schools, and organizations like the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta have deployed 64 cameras across properties following recent antisemitic threats.
Privacy advocates remain deeply concerned about Flock Safety’s rapid expansion, Forbes reported. Will Freeman, creator of the DeFlock activist group based in Boulder, Colorado, maintains a crowdsourced map of more than 29,000 license plate readers nationwide, two-thirds manufactured by Flock Safety.
“They’re searching all the time,” Freeman told Forbes, calling the surveillance network “messed up and against the principles of the Fourth Amendment.”
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Drones, New Products, and Fresh Scrutiny
Flock Safety plans to ship U.S.-made drones that the company says will begin reaching customers in August, aiming to compete with Chinese manufacturer DJI by adding aerial coverage to its fixed-camera network, according to Forbes.
Further out, Flock Safety is developing Nova, an AI search product rebuilt after the February acquisition of Lucidus, a Nashville-based startup.
According to Forbes, an unnamed Amazon Web Services law enforcement director called Lucidus' original technology "one of the most amazing tools" he had seen for policing, while The American Civil Liberties Union Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said Nova represents "an end run around privacy laws and the Constitution."
Axon Enterprise did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment.
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