Crisis response startup Iluminr has raised $4.2 million in a round led by the VC arm of global insurer QBE.
QBE Ventures is the first to be backed by an established Australian technology company. Backing the raise were domestic VCs Investable, Flying Fox and Jelix Ventures, as well as US-based Rebel Ventures.
The money is earmarked for the expansion of the US market.To double the team, expand production and open new distribution and sales channels.
CEO and founder Joshua Shields said. Resiliency technology is the next frontier in risk management; Cyber, natural disasters, supply chain disruptions or pandemics.
“A critical success factor in the development was our strong strategic alignment with QBE Ventures, who were able to take a global view of our opportunity and bring a broad network of customers and partners to the table,” he said.
Shields co-founded Ilumir with Chief Development Officer and Co-Founder Marcus Vaughan in 2019 as Catalyst Technologies. The SaaS platform helps organizations identify and manage crises and mission-critical threats using cloud-based simulation, compliance and response tools.
Short training courses provide gamification, automation, and data insights to provide 15-minute microsimulations that enable companies to build greater resilience to challenges. Ramsay has over 50 local clients including Healthcare, GPT and Sydney University and has introduced a major US financial services client offshore into the US market.
Gaschau said Illumin’s technology is a key ingredient for companies to reduce loss of life and billions of dollars in annual losses, and the US is a great opportunity for startups.
“We are bullish about the future. We believe the US offers a huge advantage to businesses like ours. It’s not only the size of the market, but also the attractiveness of being held by old technology suppliers and outdated training methods,” he said.
“Our business model intentionally challenges the status quo and is attracting significant attention. We are confident that our platform will help reinvent a category where existing offerings are broken or simply undervalued. We have the opportunity to improve how organizations engage employees and manage their critical response capabilities.”
Its co-founder Markus Von says the world has changed dramatically since the outbreak, each crisis is different from the last, and new dangers are emerging every day.
“Organisations have undergone significant changes and how they prepare for and respond to critical events is vastly different now than it was 18-24 months ago,” he said.
“Traditional training on crisis and resilience has failed to keep pace with today’s needs, changing workforce dynamics or hybrid work environments, resulting in a fragmented audience from the executive down. Combine that with growing compliance burdens and complex risks, and organizations simply can’t keep up with the effects of disruption and change.
