SafetyCulture, an Australian company specialising in software for workplace safety monitoring, is expanding into the IoT business, launching LoRaWAN connected temperature and humidity centres in partnership with Australian LoRaWAN network operator, NNNCo.
The sensors will communicate back to SafetyCulture’s main product, its iAuditor application, over LoRaWAN and the Internet via NNNCO’s N2N-DL data platform.
NNNCo founder & CEO Rob Zagarella said having N2N-DL as the data middleware platform “means that we can securely deliver the data coming from the sensors through the network right into the customers’ hands with iAuditor.”
The two companies said they have been working together for over 18 months integrating the SafetyCulture sensors into N2N-DL “to enable seamless data aggregation and ensure global network readiness.”
SafetyCulture COO, Alistair Venn, said sensors and 330 LoRaWAN gateways were about to be deployed to customers in Australia and overseas. The company has named Australian meal-delivery service Marley Spoon as one of its first customers.
The new sensors are available to operate in the LoRaWAN bands used in Australia (AS923), The USA (US915) and Europe (EU868), enabling them to be used in most of the world.
NNNCo’s IoT middleware
NNNCo launched N2N-DL at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2019, describing it as a “super-fast, highly scalable and lightweight middleware that aggregates data and users from multiple network technologies into a single platform, enabling ease and protection of data and removing key barriers of IoT adoption.”
Zagarella said it would enable users to focus on leveraging their data instead of having to manage their data. “Essentially it removes the complexity of building and deploying enterprise IoT applications at scale which is necessary to accelerate market adoption in Australia and globally.
SafetyCulture was founded by former private investigator Luke Annear in his Townsville garage in 2004 “After witnessing the tragedy of workplace incidents,” according to its website.
It was originally a developer of safety documents but moved into mobile safety monitoring applications in 2012 with the launch of iAuditor, which it says, “simplifies the auditing process by making it easy for anyone to effectively manage safety and quality from a mobile device. Frontline workers are empowered to report issues quickly to prevent an incident due to inefficiency and limited visibility.”
SafetyCulture – an Australian unicorn
It raised its first funding, $6.1m, in 2014 from Atlassian Co-Founder, Scott Farquhar, and Blackbird Ventures. In 2016 it raised $30m in a series B funding round led by Index Ventures, and opened offices in the US and UK.
The company raised $60m from aSeries C round in 2018 when it started work on its temperature and humidity sensors. This was followed by another $60.5m in April 2020, valuing the SafetyCulture at $1.3b.
The round was led by TDM Growth Partners with Blackbird Ventures, Skip Capital (Scott Farquhar’s family investment arm), Index Ventures and Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy.
