A EUR13.5 million (US $15.1 million) Series B funding round has been raised by the South African startup AURA, a life-saving technology platform that makes emergency response services more accessible and affordable. The funds will be used to fund the company’s expansion into the US and the creation of a global “clearing house” that will enable emergency response without boundaries.
AURA, a marketplace created in 2017 by Warren Myers, Ryan Green, and Adam Pantanowitz, allows anyone, anywhere, at any time, to use a connected device to connect to the nearest verified private and public security and medical response unit to their location.
The startup, which currently has its headquarters in the Netherlands, will shortly be moving to the US after raising EUR13.5 million (US$15.1 million) in a Series B round led by Partech and the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF). This comes after AURA raised US$4 million in its 2021 Series A round.
“This funding marks a pivotal moment for AURA,” Myers, AURA’s CEO, said. “Having built a profitable and trusted presence in the UK and Africa, we’re now ready to take personal safety global. Our mission is to make access to life-saving services seamless, borderless, and available through a single API – empowering individuals and the platforms that serve them.”
In the US, the startup has also launched its on-demand private security response model.
“Our goals are to make alarm verification faster, homes and businesses safer, and to help law enforcement focus on higher-priority incidents. I’m incredibly grateful to our partners and customers for their ongoing trust – and most importantly, to my exceptional team. Their dedication to our vision of a world where everyone feels safe is the true driving force behind everything we do,” he said.
Strengthening CAIF’s partnership through this follow-on investment was a “natural decision,” according to Patricia Rinke, CAIF’s investment director and a former investor in AURA.
“We trust the team’s powerful vision and extraordinary execution capabilities as it scales its life-saving technology to the US market and across the world. We are equally thrilled to welcome Partech as partners in our joint mission to make emergency response universally accessible,” she said.
