SafetyCulture snaps up training startup EdApp in maiden acquisition

Technology unicorn SafetyCulture is buying Sydney-based startup EdApp, capping off its maiden acquisition in a deal that values the online training app at $40 million.

"It gets to a point where it makes sense to either integrate or acquire capabilities," SafetyCulture founder and chief executive Luke Anear said. "If we can back great founders like Darren [Winterford] then it makes sense for us to do that and then you bring someone into the company that you would never be able to employ."

SafetyCulture was valued at $1.3 billion earlier this year after it secured $60.5 million in fresh funding and the deal follows a series of investments, totalling $9 million, by the workplace safety startup in EdApp.

Founded by Mr Winterford in 2015, EdApp delivers approximately 50,000 lessons per day across 90 countries.

Mr Anear said startup founders were increasingly turning to other founders instead of venture capital firms for funding and advice.

"VCs often aren't operators, they haven't built companies," he said. "I always found the best advice I ever got came from Scott Farquhar from Atlassian, it was very different to VC advice. What you're starting to see now is founders working together to help each other build bigger businesses instead of just taking money."

Mr Anear said just like Atlassian had grown through savvy acquisitions, like that of project management service Trello, SafetyCulture was looking to extend its reach through the EdApp purchase.

"I couldn't go have gone and offered Darren a job and he would come and work here," he said. "The calibre of the person that we need to execute on the global stage are people who can run world leading companies in their own right, and you come together to build something that's much bigger than anyone would do on their own."

With significant workforce training underway globally as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Anear said EdApp was well placed to capitalise on the trend.

"This is the biggest repurposing of skills the world has seen since World War Two," he said. "It's an interesting time so we fast tracked [the acquisition] because of COVID-19."

He said there was no household name in the world yet for training and that was the opportunity for EdApp.

"No one has cracked it, there's no company that everyone thinks about," he said. "The mission that we're on is to be that household name so that whenever people think of training they pull EdApp out of their pocket and that's what they use."

Mr Winterford said SafetyCulture's customer base would give EdApp enormous reach and the two startups already shared many key customers including Coles, Cathay Pacific and Mars.

"While we’ve traditionally focused on enterprise training, SafetyCulture’s backing will enable us to support teams of any size, free of charge," he said. "It gives us the resources with SafetyCulture's investment to say 'Ok let's take what we've got and let's multiply this by ten'. Let's now take this beautiful platform and go and give it to everyone."