A New Zealand retail crime reporting and surveillance platform that was being scrutinised by Australia’s Information Commissioner has raised NZ $82 million (A$74.3m) in a Series C.
The raise for Auror was co-led by the Woolworths-backed retail venture fund W23 Global, Nasdaq-listed US taser and body camera manufacturer Axon Enterprise, and Westpac-supported Reinventure. Also chipping in were Kiwi VCs Movac, GD1, K1W1, New Zealand Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP) and Sydney’s Folklore Ventures.
The deal values the business at more than A$500 million.
The capital is for research and development, in Auckland, to add to the headcount, and fuel expansion into the US and UK, where it is already deployed. The company also has offices in Denver, London, and Melbourne and more than 200 staff globally.
The crime intelligence software is used by 150,000 retail users globally across 45,000 stores to report theft and collate shoplifter intelligence. Around 40% of Australian retailers use the platform, including Coles, Bunnings and Woolworths, along with global retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Boots, bp, and Foodstuffs, with police from 3000 law enforcement agencies also intimately involved.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) had flagged it was looking into Auror since February this year over privacy concerns and its use by Australian Federal Police.
Details of the probe only emerged in August following a long-awaited response to questions from Greens senator David Shoebridge in 2023, who was concerned that the AFP was using the platform without adequate privacy protocols in place. AFP internal emails revealed more than 100 officers had used the software. Last month the OAIC informed the company it would drop the investigation.
The platform combines a range of data, video surveillance and other alerts from retailers to profile potential offenders, ranging from facial recognition and vehicle license plate scans, to self-checkout AI data and other reporting. That information is then shared with police, as well as other retailers.
In a blog post extolling the platform’s use by law enforcement, New Zealand officer Rick Bourne, who runs the Southern District Investigation Support Unit, has been using the intelligence gathering software for a decade to deal with offences beyond retail crime, including phone banking scams.
“We capture the before, the during and the after images of people involved in crime, sometimes before they probably even think about committing the crime!” he said.
CEO and cofounder Phil Thomson said the scaleup’s mission is connecting communities to stop crime.
“This latest raise allows us to continue our work around the world, using technology to tackle retail crime at scale, bringing retailers and law enforcement together, and making our communities safer,” he said.
“Ultimately, retail crime is a city killer – it’s a gateway to organised crime, to unsafe streets, lower property values and as stores close for safety reasons, it restricts access to essential services. Its impact on frontline workers is immense.”
NZGCP, which, alongside Reinventure, has backed Auror over the past decade, sold down part of its stake in the Series C.
Chief Investment Officer James Pinner said the Kiwi software scaleup is a global tech success story.
“Auror has already delivered back to us well over 10x the total capital we invested since 2014 which will now be reinvested into the next generation of the most promising Kiwi startups,” he said.
Reinventure managing partner, Danny Gilligan said the team, product, and mission “are rare and remarkable” and achieving great things.
“We first invested in Auror nearly 10 years ago when they were in just a handful of stores in New Zealand,” he said.
“We invested for two reasons – the founders articulated perhaps the most perfect data network effect we had ever seen and that if they were right, it was too important an impact on society not to support; they have turned out to be very right.”
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