SYDNEY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Unleash live, one of the world’s leading A.I. video analytics platforms, today announces an $8 million Series A funding round led by SafetyCulture.
Launched in 2016 by co-founders Hanno Blankenstein and Jason Grier, Unleash live’s A.I. powered real time analytics platform, ‘Intelligent Remote Vision’, generates immediate insights that enable enterprises to materially drive down costs, raise productivity, increase accuracy, and improve safety. The company has seen over 500% growth since March 2020.
“We’re excited to welcome the combined expertise of SafetyCulture and renowned investor Roger Allen AM, who will drive the continued success of Unleash live and help take us to the next level,” said co-founder and CEO Hanno Blankenstein.
Unleash live reached an impressive milestone earlier this year, completing 30 million minutes of analysed video, providing analytics across a wide range of enterprise and government use cases, from automating inspections for optimised performance on wind farms, to supporting public transport operators with commuter, social distancing and face mask analytics.
In addition to its investment in Unleash live, SafetyCulture CEO, Luke Anear, will be joining the board. SafetyCulture is a global operations platform empowering teams to drive workplace improvements. One of the fastest-growing technology companies in Australia, it also acquired microlearning business EdApp in 2020.
“It’s great to see such innovative new thinking in response to old challenges,” Anear said. “We recognise the potential of leveraging camera feeds to trigger safer, smarter actions. A.I. video analytics is an enormously powerful data source for an operations platform like ours, and one that many of our customers can benefit from. Unleash live has shown extraordinary growth during the past year. I’m eager to help them support more organisations globally to be better, faster and more reliable."
Roger Allen AM is an experienced software entrepreneur and venture capital investor focused on investing in Australian fast growth technology companies. Allen said, “Australian technology companies are globally competitive and attracting significant investment both domestically and internationally.
"It is great to see SafetyCulture - an already successful Australian technology company - investing and supporting a new emerging company with a large global opportunity in Unleash live. I look forward to sharing the journey."
Unleash live’s CEO, Blankenstein explained that the COVID-19 pandemic had played a part in the increased adoption of video streaming and remote collaboration: “A growing number of businesses now use Unleash live to overcome the challenges of maintaining distributed assets and to keep employees out of harm’s way.
"Remote monitoring and machine learning assisted inspections will remain critical when the pandemic ends because so many organisations have realised there is a significant opportunity to improve how they operate. They will continue to apply these learnings and look for new ways to build them into their business.”
Unleash live will use the Series A funding to fuel the growth of its A.I. Apps Store, where developers and organisations with in-house A.I./ML skills can build, train and deploy Apps that meet specific enterprise needs.
A.I. analytics are injected into livestream video to augment the role of inspectors, progress monitors, financiers, auditors, and regulators. The funding will also support the expansion of its US team and help provide the quality experiences that enterprise customers expect.
Additional information:
Today, Unleash live's A.I. App Store supports 34 Apps, addressing a wide range of use cases, from Solar PV and Power line fault detection to traffic and multi modal transport analytics. The number of Apps is expected to pass 200 during the next two years.
Customers connect existing image capture devices (CCTV, IP cameras, drones, smartphones etc.) to Unleash live's cloud-based platform (built on secure AWS services), start streaming their video and then apply the A.I. of their choice from the Apps Store. They do not need to invest in any hardware infrastructure, nor do they need to implement large-scale integration programs.
Customers subscribe to a tiered subscription model, that is based on live streaming, secure storage, and A.I. Apps modules. Existing customers range from city authorities, such as Miami-Dade Transit Authority, the City of Sacramento, and Transport for New South Wales, to energy and resource businesses, such as Worley and BHP.
About SafetyCulture
SafetyCulture is the operational heartbeat of working teams around the world. Its mobile-first operations platform leverages the power of human observation to identify issues and opportunities for businesses to improve everyday. More than 28,000 organizations use its flagship products, iAuditor and EdApp, to perform checks, train staff, report issues, automate tasks and communicate fluidly. SafetyCulture powers over 600 million checks per year, approximately 50,000 lessons per day and millions of corrective actions, giving leaders visibility and workers a voice in driving safety, quality and efficiency improvements.
Recent analysis by Forrester found that SafetyCulture’s flagship products provide a 214% return on investment for customers, and USD $3.6M in cost savings from operational improvements.
Customers of SafetyCulture’s award winning products include the likes of Coles, Commonwealth Bank, Kmart and United Nations.
