Thiel’s former co-founder just launched a drone that he says could replace police helicopters

When I talk to Blake Resnick, he’s walking around his newest office in Seattle — a 50,000-square-foot space that, Resnick estimates, won’t be installed until the end of the year—probably November. However, the large (and currently, empty) building offers the promise of a fast-growing company that wants to conquer its industry.

The company in question is public security and its origin is Brinc, which sells drones to police and government agencies across the U.S. The company wants to be the “DJI of the West,” as Resnick has said – a nod to the Chinese drone manufacturer is a sign that Resnick wants Brinc to be the same as the technology it sells.

Already Thiel’s man — a popular program that helps young entrepreneurs skip or drop out of college — Resnick founded Brinc in 2017 and soon gained interest from former OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who became one of Brinc’s. first planters. Since then, Brinc has enjoyed several investments and, at last, was valued at nearly half a billion dollars, Resnick tells me.

Brinc he introduced his new medicine On Tuesday, a new public safety drone called the Guardian that Resnick says is “the closest thing to a police helicopter that the drone industry has ever built.” Brinc claims it is “the world’s most advanced 9-11 plane”.

Guardians certainly come with some challenges and abilities. The drone can fly at speeds of up to 60 mph and can last up to 62 minutes of flight time, its creator says. It also comes with a thermal imaging camera, as well as two additional 4K cameras—both with recording capabilities. “Even if they’re too high, the police department can read, like, the details of the paper,” Resnick tells me. In addition, there is a light, and a speaker louder than a police siren.

The drone’s landing gear (which Brinc calls a “washer comb”) provides a stable mechanism. battery replacementand can be saved with basic safety equipment such as defibrillators, flotation devices, and Narcan, all without human intervention.

The Guardian also comes with a Starlink module integrated directly into its body, making it – according to Brinc – the first public safety drone with such capabilities. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite project, provides drone connectivity anywhere in the world. “Starlink has never been built into a commercially produced quadcopter before, so (it) offers unlimited airframe flights anywhere in the world,” Resnick tells me.

Resnick clearly sees public safety as a huge opportunity. “There are 20,000 police departments in America, 30,000 fire departments, 80,000 police and fire stations – and we think that half of that market in the future will have a 911 response drone in a nest on the roof,” he said. “It looks like we’re looking at a $6 billion to $8 billion market opportunity,” he said, looking at markets in the US and other countries.

In the future, Brinc they agreed recently and the National League of Cities on a program to expand “drone as first responder” programs in communities across the country — a move that could help foster relationships between startups and potential customer communities.

Additionally, Resnick feels that recent political developments have helped his company. Until recently, DJI was pleased with the illegal monopoly on the global drone market—including the US, where security agencies he cried long ago on the products of Chinese companies. However, the Trump administration recently banned drones produced by other countries to prevent them from entering the country, thus opening up a very large market.

“There’s a huge demand for a western DJI, or a leading drone manufacturer in the free world, and that’s what we want to be,” says Resnick.