SafetyCulture, which began life in a Townsville garage, raises $165m although valuation drops to $2.5bn

One of Australia’s most successful start-ups founded in a Townsville garage in 2004 has raised $165m as part of a major round led by AirTree Ventures.

SafetyCulture founder Luke Annear and chief financial officer John Blake

The valuation of SafetyCulture has been cut to $2.5bn from $2.7bn a year ago amid a tougher market as the workplace software start-up raised $165m in its latest funding round.

The new raise, announced on Monday, is one of the largest this year, led by long-term backer AirTree, one of the nation’s largest venture capital firms which has also backed Canva, Linktree, Eucalyptus and Me&U.

The $165m also included participation from Blackbird, Hostplus, Hesta and Morpheus Ventures, one of the leading funds behind a $34m raise last year when the company was valued at $2.7bn alongside Marbruck Investments and Index Ventures.

Chief executive Luke Anear said the new capital would allow the $2.5bn company to continue to grow. He acknowledged that it was a difficult time to raise.

SafetyCulture, which has an app, is considering new AI-powered products.

“It’s a tough environment to be raising in, but we’re proud of the results the business is delivering and pleased that we can continue to create regular liquidity events for early investors and long-term employees,” he said.

SafetyCulture is regarded as one of the nation’s most successful start-ups, with a humble beginning from a Townsville garage in 2004.

What started as a tick-box platform quickly grew to become one of the world’s most adopted compliance operators.

But in recent years it has increasingly expanded into new territories. Last October Safety-Culture launched sensor products with IoT functionality. It has also begun to monitor assets for customers.

Mr Anear said the company was considering new AI-powered products and how it could use the mountains of data it collected.

“We’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to transforming frontline work,” he said.

“Few tech companies have our direct reach to frontline workers across so many different industries, so we have both a responsibility and a massive opportunity to create significant change for these people.”

SafetyCulture founder and chief executive Luke Anear.

Like most companies, SafetyCulture has been trying to figure out whether AI can have a real impact on the business.

Last year it launched new features including a marketplace and training course software, trying to replicate a YouTube-type model on its platform. It is also using generative AI to produce images and files from prompts.

“We’ve built the world’s largest repository of workplace data, containing over 5 petabytes of data and billions of images,” Mr Anear said.

“AI is the way we can make sense of that information, and if we can harness it properly, we’ll effectively be able to give frontline teams superpowers that will completely change the way they work.”

AirTree Ventures partner Kell Reill said it was an “opportune time” to back SafetyCulture again as the company continued “making waves on the global stage”.

SafetyCulture’s Surry Hills office in Sydney.

“Having tracked SafetyCulture’s journey to date, now is an opportune time to join them at this inflection point,” he said.

“SafetyCulture has all the hallmarks of Silicon Valley’s tech heavyweights – a compelling vision, product, scale and team.”

The platform is used by 85,000 companies with about two million users, according to its recent data. It employs about 800 staff, has six global offices and a goal of reaching 100 million users in the next eight years.

Originally published as SafetyCulture, which began life in a Townsville garage, raises $165m although valuation drops to $2.5bn