A startup affiliated with Thiel’s colleague just launched a drone that it says could replace police helicopters

When I spoke to Blake Resnick, he was touring his drone startup’s newest office space in Seattle — a cavernous, 50,000-square-foot facility that, Resnick estimates, won’t be fully set up until later in the year — likely November. However, the large (and currently largely empty) building offers the promise of a fast-growing company intent on conquering its own industry.

The industry in question is public safety and the startup is Brinc, which sells drones to police and public agencies across the United States. The company wants to be “the DJI of the West,” Resnick said — a reference to the Chinese drone manufacturer and a sign that Resnick wants Brinc to become synonymous with the technology it sells.

Resnick, a former fellow at Thiel — a prestigious program that funds young entrepreneurs to skip or defer college — founded Brinc in 2017 and it wasn’t long after that he got interest from then-OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who was eventually one of Brinc’s early investors. Since then, Brink has enjoyed a number of funding rounds, and as of its most recent round, it was worth nearly half a billion dollars, Resnick told me.

Brinc launched its latest product on Tuesday, a new public safety drone called Guardian that Resnick says is “the closest thing to replacing police helicopters that the drone industry has ever produced.” Brink claims it is the world’s “most capable 9/11 response drone” ever.

The Guardian certainly comes with some impressive specifications and capabilities. Its creator says the drone can fly at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour and can sustain a flight time of 62 minutes. It also has thermal imaging cameras, plus two additional 4K cameras, all of which have zoom capabilities. “Even from a great height, the police department can read the details of the license plate,” Resnick told me. Plus, there’s a spotlight and a loudspeaker that’s louder than a police siren.

The drone’s landing station (which Brink calls a “charging nest”) provides automated battery swapping, and can be outfitted with critical safety supplies like defibrillators, flotation devices, and Narcan, all without human intervention.

Guardian also comes with a Starlink panel built directly into its body, making it – according to Brink – the first public safety drone with this capability. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, provides connectivity to the drone anywhere around the world. “Starlink has never been built into a commercially produced quadcopter before, so [it] “The airframe gives the airframe unlimited range anywhere in the world,” Resnick tells me.

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

On that front, Brink recently partnered with the National League of Cities on a program to expand its “drones as first responder” programs in communities across the country — a move that will certainly help strengthen relationships between the startup and communities that could eventually become customers.

Additionally, Resnick feels that recent geopolitical developments have worked to his company’s advantage. Until recently, DJI enjoyed an informal monopoly on the global drone market, including in the United States, where safety agencies have long relied on the Chinese company’s products. However, the Trump administration recently banned foreign-made drone models from entering the country, opening up a huge potential market.

“There’s a huge need for a DJI from the West, or a leading drone manufacturer for the free world, and ultimately, that’s what we want to be,” says Resnick.