MultiChoice Leads A $4.7m Funding Round In South African Medical And Security Platform, AURA
AURA, a medical and security response platform based in South Africa, has raised $4.7 million (R62 million) in a Series A round of funding to expand its operations abroad.
MultiChoice Group (MCG) led the funding round, which also included KLT Holdings and Buffet Investments.
“We are gearing some of the funding towards hiring top talent to head up each new region while growing teams in established regions — especially our tech team. The result is stronger relationships and value propositions for suppliers at all levels in the marketplace,” Ryan Green, co-founder said.
Why The Investors Invested
Since its debut, the firm has gained a lot of traction. AURA has created a network of trusted and reliable response vehicles by working with premium armed and emergency medical response providers. The platform’s network now has around 400,000 active members.
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MultiChoice Group CEO Calvo Mawela said the investment in AURA was a way to expand their service offerings while also driving economic development.
“To accelerate the evolution of our ecosystem by offering additional value-added services to our customers, we are investing in scalable and innovative technology platforms like AURA. Not only does it strengthen our service offering and enhance long-term value creation for shareholders, but it also drives economic development and job creation,” Calvo Mawela, Group CEO of MultiChoice said.
A Look At What The Startup Does
Warren Myers, Ryan Green, and Adam Pantanowitz launched AURA in 2016. The marketplace employs artificial intelligence and machine learning to fine-tune its system to ensure that the nearest responders are dispatched to a distress call, whether it is medical or security-related.
The platform was created in response to the urgent demand for increased efficiency in the South African security business in order to address the country’s rising crime rate.
AURA allows anyone, anywhere, at any moment, to contact the closest verified private and public security and medical response unit to their position via a linked device such as a smartphone, Bluetooth device, or any internet-connected device.
Response times drop from an average of 30 minutes to as little as one to five minutes when artificial intelligence and machine learning are used to ensure that the nearest responders are deployed to a distress call.
Earlier this year, the company expanded to East Africa and the United Kingdom, and the new capital arrangement will allow it to accelerate its already excellent growth trajectory.
The new finance transaction, according to co-founder Ryan Green, gives an exceptional chance for AURA to enter new markets and scale up operations smoothly.
With a present team of roughly 50 people, talent acquisition is expected to rise, particularly in the technology sector.
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The investment, according to fellow co-founder Warren Myers, is the first step toward AURA’s vision of a safer future for all.
“Our hope is to become the centre repository for risk data – not only responding to emergencies but to proactively predict and deal with any type of violent crime, whether on a one-on-one scale or the size of a riot. The data is already available to do so, it’s just not centralised yet, ” he said.
AURA medical security platform AURA medical security platform
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning write