Seattle-based public safety drone leader BRINC today announced a massive $125 million financing round led by telecommunications and public safety giant Motorola Solutions, with participation from Index Ventures and Figma CEO Dylan Field. This blockbuster injection of capital brings BRINC’s total funding to more than a quarter-billion dollars.
And what do they plan to do with all that money? The company says its goal is to put a 911 response drone on the roof of every police and fire station in America. Is the heavy-hitting backing from Motorola a clear signal that BRINC will dominate the automated public safety drone market?
I caught up with David Benowitz, a spokesperson for BRINC, to get the exclusive, behind-the-scenes details on what this massive round actually unlocks for the company, their realistic deployment timelines and how they plan to bypass standard regulatory roadblocks.
1. Expanding the Seattle factory
Back in March, BRINC made waves when it made two announcements: It unveiled Guardian, its highly advanced, 24/7-operational, Starlink-connected 911 response drone, and it also announced a new Seattle drone factory that would more than double BRINC’s previous production footprint.
Now, we have more details about that factory. The new facility is double the size of BRINC’s current space and is located along the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle’s Upper Queen Anne neighborhood —just a mile from their current Fremont headquarters. BRINC is currently building out the space and expects to physically move in right before the end of the year.
“This announcement of new funds will help us double down on that investment with net new manufacturing equipment, keep up our aggressive hiring pace, and make further investments across our product portfolio,” Benowitz told The Drone Girl.
2. The timeline to achieve its goals
While putting a drone on all 80,000 police and fire roofs in the U.S. makes for an incredible headline, how realistic is is really to manufacturer all that hardware? According to Benowitz, the newly expanded Seattle facility is the key to unlocking those massive manufacturing runs.
“Building stations takes up a lot of floorspace,” Benowitz said. “We should be at the level of thousands of stations next year, and we should hit tens of thousands of cumulative stations built in roughly 3 years.”
If they can hit those numbers, BRINC projects that their ultimate vision of nationwide, station-by-station coverage could actually become a reality on a 3 to 5-year time horizon.
3. BRINC’s sales and pricing
BRINC shared that it has signed four times as many DFR contracts in 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, securing major partnerships with agencies like the Los Angeles Fire Department and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
“We have hundreds of DFR contracts and hundreds of live and operational stations out there among public safety agencies,” Benowitz said.
But what does a system like this actually cost a city? After all, enterprise “drone-in-a-box” systems are notoriously expensive—often costing local governments tens of thousands of dollars in upfront capital.
While the company doesn’t disclose specific public pricing structures, Benowitz noted that BRINC is actively trying to break down financial barriers.
“I’m proud to say that BRINC has opened up more affordable and approachable options for agencies to get started deploying its products,” he said.
4. Navigating FAA rules
Even if an agency has the budget to buy a drone dock for their station roof, they still have to face the ultimate gatekeeper: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). To run automated DFR operations, public safety teams must secure complex Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waivers so pilots can fly the drones remotely without physically looking at them.
While the industry eagerly awaits the FAA’s formalized Part 108 rules for BVLOS flight, BRINC says they aren’t letting regulatory friction slow down their business. In fact, it seems as though they are using that regulatory bottleneck as a selling point.
“In all of our 911 response contracts, we include free FAA waiver support, where we assist them in getting a BVLOS waiver,” Benowitz said. “To-date, we have a 100% success rate in assisting agencies through this process.”
What this means for the drone industry
This $125 million round is a huge figure on its own, and it’s interesting to see it tied to Motorola Solutions. By securing Motorola as a primary backer, BRINC could find itself with a direct integration into the “central nervous system” of American dispatch. Because Motorola’s software runs the CAD and communication systems in the vast majority of dispatch centers in the country, BRINC drones could theoretically be triggered automatically the second a dispatcher types a keyword into their system.
It may be able to then bypass the traditional, sluggish sales cycles of local governments and directly integrating with the software public safety agencies already use daily. And with that, BRINC may be positioned to scale faster than almost anyone else in the space.
What do you think of BRINC’s 80,000 station vision? Is your local police or fire department already using drones as first responders? Let’s talk about the future of DFR in the comments below!
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