Townsville-born SafetyCulture Australia’s newest tech ‘unicorn’

This Townsville-born company is now worth more than $1bn after its latest funding round, with Malcolm Turnbull jumping on board as an investor.

Australia has its newest tech ‘unicorn’, with safety compliance software maker SafetyCulture valued at $1.3bn after its latest $60m funding round.

The Series C funding round was led by TDM Growth Partners, which has poured money into Aconex, Culture Amp and Tyro Payments, and backed by Blackbird Ventures, Skip Capital, Index Ventures and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy.

SafetyCulture chief executive and founder Luke Anear said all staff who had been with the company longer than three years were given an opportunity to cash out some of their vested equity, and more than half of the new funding was made available to employees.

He said the remainder of the capital would be used to fund the company's rapid growth. SafetyCulture has teams in Sydney, Townsville, Kansas City, Manchester and Manila.

“This is an exciting milestone for us to achieve as a company, especially during uncertain times like these,” Mr Anear said.

“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.”

The executive said more than 500,000 workers and 26,000 organisations in 85 countries use SafetyCulture's iAuditor app to complete more than 600 million checks per year.

Annual recurring revenue was up 85 per cent during the past year and the business is now cash positive, Mr Anear said, and the company is currently hiring engineers.

“Keeping people safe is at the core of our company’s purpose. To support workers across industries affected by COVID-19, we’ve launched a series of tools to help them stay on top of COVID-19 related safety issues in the workplace,” Mr Anear said.

“We’re also providing free six month access to iAuditor Premium and other SafetyCulture products to our healthcare, emergency, education and volunteer workers who are providing vital services to our communities at this time.”