Rahul Sidhu, the former police officer who sold his drone startup Aerodome to Flock Safety for more than $300 million in October 2024, is leaving Flock to join Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism team as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Sidhu announced the move on LinkedIn on Monday, November 2, writing that two years after the sale he is leaving the drone business “in good hands,” and that a long-awaited honeymoon comes first.
Flock named Sidhu VP of Aviation when it bought Aerodome, and by August 2026 he was its chief strategy officer. He was the face of the Drone as First Responder product that CEO Garrett Langley now calls Flock’s fastest-growing business unit, the one Langley says will make up nearly half of the company’s future revenue.
He leaves within days of the exit of roughly 270 Flock employees, about 18% of the company, under a buyout program that closed at the end of October. And he leaves with Alpha, the American-built drone Flock promised to early-access customers before the end of 2025, still sold on Flock’s website as an early-access product.
Sidhu built Aerodome in 17 months and sold it to Flock for more than $300 million
Aerodome was 17 months old when Flock bought it in October 2024, and the price topped $300 million, according to TechCrunch’s reporting at the time. The startup had raised $28 million. Andreessen Horowitz backed both companies, so the venture firm sat on both sides of the deal.
Sidhu had called Aerodome an “American Dynamism speed-run,” a nod to the a16z practice he now joins. DroneXL covered Aerodome in May 2024, when the company’s website showed its drone-in-a-box setup built around a rebranded DJI Matrice 350. Sidhu acknowledged then that DJI still excelled at things like reading a license plate from 400 feet (122 meters).
Flock’s acquisition announcement committed the company to “a suite of American-made, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)-compliant drones, set to be released over the next 12 months.” Flock cut the ribbon on a 97,000-square-foot drone plant in Smyrna, Georgia, in April 2025. By September 2025 Sidhu was launching Aerodome DAS, the private-security version of the product. In May he was on a16z’s podcast with David Ulevitch, the general partner who runs its American Dynamism practice, explaining Flock’s sensor network. In August, Mother Jones was quoting him as chief strategy officer, defending Flock’s auditing after reports that officers had used its cameras to stalk people.
The firm he joins also holds Skydio and Anduril, and DroneXL reported in June how Marc Andreessen’s seat on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board sits next to those holdings.
Sidhu leaves days after 270 colleagues took Flock’s buyout
Flock opened a voluntary separation program for its roughly 1,500 employees on September 18, WIRED reported, with decisions due October 9 and most leavers gone by October 29. Reuters reported on October 8 that about 270 people, 18% of the company, would go.
Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel told TechCrunch it was “a voluntary program, not a layoff.” The advocacy group Secure Justice counts 214 cities and counties that have dropped Flock contracts since 2021, 90 of them in 2026, per Futurism, and Flock says renewals outpace cancellations. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 38% of Americans support Flock cameras in their community and 47% oppose them.
The drone side is the part Flock points to when it talks about growth, with about 175 DFR customers in October. That unit’s founder is now at the venture firm that owns a piece of Flock, Skydio and Anduril. Flock’s About page and product pages, as of November 4, name nobody as his successor on the aviation side.
Alpha, the drone Sidhu’s unit built, is still an early-access product a year after launch
Flock unveiled Alpha in Denver on October 16, 2025, and its announcement said the drone “will be delivered to Early Access customers before the end of the year.” As of November 4, Flock’s DFR page still gates Alpha behind a “Get Early Access” button.
Flock’s “Alpha in Action” post, the one it links from that page, says the drone is “available now through early access for agencies nationwide.” The specs on Flock’s pages today match the Denver announcement: 60 mph (97 km/h), a camera Flock says reads a plate from 2,000 feet (610 meters), a 90-second turnaround in a dock that both swaps and contact-charges batteries, and four cellular modems. Flock says it designs and assembles the aircraft in Atlanta. DroneXL questioned the 2,000-foot figure in June, when Flock’s own Aerodome pages still said 1,000 feet.
The public record on Alpha in the field is thin. Oakland County, Michigan’s seven-drone program, approved in April, was described as running on Alpha. Warwick, Rhode Island bought one for $150,000 in March and, as of October, still lacked the airport airspace approval to fly it. Edison, New Jersey voted in September to buy one. Lewiston, New York, got one Flock drone on loan in February, and the report does not say which model. In March, the Fulton County jail deployment in Atlanta, billed as the country’s first jail anti-contraband DFR program, ran on a DJI Matrice 4TD and a DJI Dock 3, not on Alpha. Flock’s DFR product page today names only Alpha and its own docks, and DJI appears nowhere on it.
I searched Flock’s blog and product pages on November 4 and found no Alpha delivery count. Sidhu’s LinkedIn post thanks Langley, the Flock team and the Aerodome team and names nobody who takes over. Flock’s newest post that mentions Alpha, a November 4 IACP recap, has the drone “on display” at the booth.
DroneXL’s Take
The money was made in October 2024. Everything since has been Flock’s problem, and now it is Flock’s problem without the man who sold it the plan. An entrepreneur-in-residence seat at the investor that funded both sides of a $300 million deal is about the softest landing in this industry, and I don’t blame Sidhu for taking it. He built a company in 17 months and sold it for more than ten times what it had raised.
His stated reasons are a16z and a honeymoon, and I take him at his word. I still think the timing says more about Flock than about him. I doubt a founder walks away from a drone business Langley says will be nearly half of Flock’s revenue if the aircraft it is betting on were already sitting in 175 docks. Yes, an 18% cut can be housekeeping after a growth binge, and Flock says renewals outpace cancellations. But Alpha was promised to early-access customers before the end of 2025, the Fulton County jail deployment DroneXL documented in March flew DJI hardware, and the FCC’s December Covered List order shut the door on new DJI authorizations, so the American drone is the whole bet.
If you run a DFR program on a Flock contract, get the Alpha delivery date in writing and ask who signs it now that Sidhu doesn’t. Flock has about 175 DFR customers and no public Alpha delivery count, and as of November 4 it has not named who answers for that.
Sources: TechCrunch (October 2024 and October 2026), Flock Safety announcements and product pages, Mother Jones, a16z, Police Magazine, Government Technology, WIRED, Reuters, Futurism, Rahul Sidhu’s LinkedIn post, Cosign talent newsletter
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
