ATLANTA, July 18 — Flock Safety, the privately held automated license plate recognition and surveillance company, now carries a $7.5 billion valuation after raising $950 million in venture funding. By the numbers, its network performs more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month across over 5,000 communities in 49 U.S. states as of 2025. Investors will note that growth in both municipal contracts and scanning volume has been rapid: in 2024 the company was in roughly 4,000 cities across 42 states, employing over 900 people.
By 2025 that had jumped to over 6,000 municipalities.
From dining table to drone maker
What started in 2017 as a side project with cameras hand-built around founder Garrett Langley’s dining table now spans fixed cameras — the Falcon and Sparrow models — that monitor traffic and photograph rear license plates. Langley, along with Georgia Tech alumni Paige Todd and Matt Feury, built the first units as a part-time effort. The turning point came when a DeKalb County detective reported that one prototype camera helped solve a home break-in.
That prompted Langley to urge the co-founders to quit their day jobs and go all-in on Flock. The company’s platform uses computer vision and machine learning to read plates and identify vehicle characteristics, then shares that data with police departments, homeowners’ associations, and community organizations.
In October 2024, Flock acquired Aerodome, a manufacturer of law-enforcement drones, and announced plans to introduce its own line of drones. That expansion aligns with a physical footprint that also grew: in 2026 the company relocated its headquarters to The Medici on Northside Parkway in Atlanta, more than doubling its previous 14,000-square-foot office space.
Privacy and pushback
The figure that matters for critics is the scale of data collection. The network’s fixed cameras and gunfire locator systems, combined with supporting software that integrates data from all those sensors, have drawn scrutiny from civil liberties advocates. Critics describe Flock as an example of mass surveillance, and its effects on privacy and civil liberties are subjects of public debate, scrutiny, and litigation.
Some cities have ended contracts with Flock over concerns about its data being used in immigration enforcement, broader privacy worries, or because the company acted without municipal consent. The bottom line: Flock continues to win new municipal business — over 6,000 municipalities as of last year — while also facing ongoing legal and reputational fights.
With $950 million in backing and a $7.5 billion valuation, the company’s trajectory shows no sign of slowing down. Watch for how its planned introduction of law-enforcement drones reshapes the competitive landscape and how cities that have cut ties versus those that have embraced the system influence the next chapter of the story.
Sources
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