Axon Acquires Main Competitor VieVu, Consolidating 80% Control of Police Body Camera Market

On May 4, 2018, Axon Enterprise acquired VieVu LLC, its primary competitor in the police body camera industry, for $7.1 million ($4.6 million cash and $2.5 million in stock) plus performance-based milestone payments of 141,000 additional shares. The acquisition eliminated meaningful competition in the police body camera market, giving Axon control of approximately 80% of body camera deployments in major US cities. VieVu had supplied body cameras and cloud-based evidence management systems to hundreds of law enforcement agencies including the New York City Police Department, Miami-Dade Police Department, Phoenix Police Department, Oakland Police Department, and Aurora, Colorado Police Department—representing some of the largest urban police forces in the United States.

Consolidation of Market Power

The VieVu acquisition came just thirteen months after Axon’s aggressive rebrand and free body camera promotion, demonstrating how quickly the company moved to eliminate competition once it established market dominance. Prior to the merger, Axon already controlled the largest share of the body camera market; the VieVu purchase removed the only significant alternative for police departments seeking to avoid vendor lock-in to Axon’s ecosystem. Industry analysts noted that the acquisition price—approximately $7 million for a company serving hundreds of major police departments—was remarkably low, suggesting either financial distress at VieVu or Axon’s strategic willingness to pay a premium to eliminate its competitor quickly.

Strategic Partnership with Safariland

As part of the acquisition, Axon entered a long-term strategic partnership with VieVu’s parent company Safariland Group, making Safariland the preferred holster supplier for Axon’s TASER Conducted Electric Weapons. This partnership integrated Axon more deeply into the police equipment supply chain, bundling stun gun holsters with body cameras and cloud services to create a comprehensive “end-to-end” law enforcement technology platform. The holster partnership ensured that police departments purchasing Tasers would be guided toward Axon’s body camera ecosystem, further consolidating the company’s market control across multiple product categories.

Antitrust and Monopoly Concerns

The acquisition raised immediate antitrust concerns among civil liberties groups and competition watchdogs, who warned that Axon’s near-monopoly would result in higher prices, reduced innovation, and diminished accountability in police surveillance technology. In 2023, police departments from multiple cities filed class action lawsuits alleging that Axon maintained an unlawful monopoly in both body camera systems and electrical weapons, claiming the company used its market dominance to impose unfavorable contract terms and prevent competition. Federal regulators subsequently opened investigations into whether the VieVu acquisition violated antitrust law, though these investigations faced challenges given that the merger had been completed years earlier and market consolidation was already entrenched.

Impact on Police Surveillance Infrastructure

The consolidation meant that the vast majority of police body camera footage in the United States would be stored, processed, and analyzed through Axon’s proprietary Evidence.com platform, creating a centralized repository of police surveillance data with minimal competitive alternatives. This centralization raised significant concerns about data security, privacy, algorithmic bias in Axon’s AI-powered analysis tools, and the company’s ability to unilaterally change pricing, access policies, or data retention practices without meaningful market pressure. Civil liberties advocates noted that once police departments committed their evidence infrastructure to Axon’s platform, the high switching costs made it nearly impossible to migrate to alternative providers even if Axon’s policies became problematic.