SafetyCulture’s latest financing round ups its valuation to AU$1.3 billion
With fresh funding of AU$60.5 million (US$35.5 million), SafetyCulture is Australia’s newest unicorn. The Series C-1 raise puts the security software developer’s valuation at AU$1.3 billion (approximately US$800 million), the company said on its official blog. Australian investment firm TDM Growth Partners led the round.
Hamish Corlett, partner at TDM Growth Partners, said that the investment firm was “particularly passionate about supporting Australian founders and their businesses… The future is incredibly bright for SafetyCulture and we are excited to now be sharing that journey with them for many years to come.”
The round also saw participation from venture capital fund Blackbird Ventures, private investment fund Skip Capital, venture capital firm Index Ventures, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and former Lord Mayor of Sydney Lucy Turnbull.
With this round, the total amount of investment raised by SafetyCulture since 2014 crosses AU$150 million (over US$90 million).
SafetyCulture said in its blog that the company has pushed annual recurring revenue up by 85% in the past year and that the business was cash-flow positive.
The funding will go towards early employee benefits, further hiring, and product development.
SafetyCulture founder and CEO Luke Anear said, “This is an exciting milestone for us to achieve as a company… We’re particularly happy about giving employees the opportunity to sell some of their equity as a reward for all their hard work and continued loyalty.”
More than half of the raise was made available to employees–staff who had clocked in over three years with the company could cash out some of their stock. The remaining funds will be invested into growth, the company said.
The startup’s flagship product is its mobile inspection app iAuditor which, along with a web platform, allows organizations to raise safety and quality compliance standards.
The app has been used to complete more than 600 million checks per year, the company said on its blog. So far, over 500,000 workers and 26,000 organizations across 85 countries have used the iAuditor app, it added.
The startup mentioned that it was hiring software engineers and product managers to expand the scope of the app’s features to include enhanced analytics, IoT tech, and telematics.
Alerted by the COVID-19 crisis, Anear mentioned that SafetyCulture launched a series of safety tools that workers in COVID-19-affected industries could leverage, and was providing free six-month access to iAuditor premium in addition to “other SafetyCulture products to our healthcare, emergency, education and volunteer workers who are providing vital services to our communities at this time.”
Header image by Anastasia Dulgier on Unsplash
