A Townsville-born technology company behind a workplace safety app has reached a value of $2.2 billion.

SafetyCulture has closed a $99 million funding round led by ScaleUp software investor Insight Partners, and joined by existing investors Tiger Global, Index Ventures and Blackbird.

The business, now headquartered in Sydney, is behind the iAuditor app – which provides safety inspection checklists. 

It was originally founded in 2004 from SafetyCulture founder and chief executive officer Luke Anear’s Townsville garage.

“We recently surpassed 100 million completed inspections in our flagship product, iAuditor, and this new funding allows us to continue that momentum,” Mr Anear said.

“It also allows us to invest in the development of our platform which will ensure the information captured by workers can easily be acted upon to improve quality, efficiency, and safety in the workplace.

“Strategic growth investments and acquisitions will remain a key focus. Following the acquisition of online microlearning app, EdApp, last year, we’re looking at other great innovations which will transform the experience for millions of working teams around the world.”

Mr Anear said SafetyCulture had helped helped organisations navigate the pandemic, compiling knowledge in a free COVID-19 Resource Hub, while 75,000 people worldwide were using iAuditor to complete daily COVID-19 inspections.

Insight Partners said SafetyCulture’s funding and new valuation was based on its progress in delivering value to a broader operational user base and its continued growth across a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, hospitality, retail and logistics.

The company has attracted more than 1.5 million users to sign up to its platform in more than 85 countries.

“SafetyCulture’s growth is testament to the company’s deep understanding of the challenges working teams face in distributed work environments and their ability to consistently deliver innovative solutions to help these businesses improve every day,” Insight Partners managing director Teddie Wardi said.

“It has been phenomenal to see what the SafetyCulture team has achieved over the last few years.”

SafetyCulture’s employee base has grown 2.5 times in the last three years. It plans to continue the same hiring trajectory for the foreseeable future as it rapidly expands its global product and engineering teams.

Insight Partners said SafetyCulture’s most recent funding followed its unicorn valuation of $1.3 billion last April after securing $60.5 million from TDM Growth Partners, alongside Blackbird Ventures, Index Ventures, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy Turnbull, and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar (through his investment vehicle Skip Capital led by his wife Kim Jackson).