Tech founder Luke Anear never went out seeking venture capital investment.
In fact the creator of SafetyCulture, a workplace safety checklist app, didn't know what the phrase "VC" meant until recently.
![Scott Farquhar, left, of Atlassian assisted Luke Anear, Safety Culture, in its venture capital foray.](/web/20170121215712im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/o/g/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs4kxx.png/1476769115672.jpg)
But apparently without chasing it, Anear and his company secured a $30 million venture capital raise from US investors Index Ventures. The two were connected by Paul Kwan of Morgan Stanley's Silicon Valley arm.
"We were just focused on proving our business model and moving from individual people downloading the app to organisational wide deployments that were building a real revenue business. Then all of a sudden we were given this opportunity," he said.
![SafetyCulture is an Australian checklist application used by companies worldwide.](/web/20170121215712im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/o/g/u/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs4kxx.png/1476769115672.jpg)
The statement is typical of the humble, jargon-free CEO.
"I haven't really taken a moment to look around and celebrate this because to me we are climbing Everest and this is just base camp. There's so much more to do."
With Tuesday's announcement, SafetyCulture claims the valuation of the company has shot up up from $6 million two years ago to $160 million.
Clients include Coles, Qantas and Hilton but Anear has plans to focus on developing economies, hoping his app will help avoid major disasters like that of the Bangladeshi clothing factory.
![Documentation proved to be a herculean effort said SafetyCulture CEO Luke Anear (centre).](/web/20170121215712im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/o/g/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs4kxx.png/1476769115672.jpg)
Founding the business in February 2012 on his kitchen counter, the Townsville-based entrepreneur says he believes SafetyCulture could grow into a billion-dollar business model.
"We were first in the market with a mobile-first checklist workplace safety application, which has been a big help. There are legacy competitors who started out with desktop programs, and are having a hard time reverse-engineering. And we are seeing copycats pop up, so that keeps us working hard to stay ahead," he said.
![Luke Anear, founder of SafetyCulture is staying put in Townsville.](/web/20170121215712im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/4/o/g/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs4kxx.png/1476769115672.jpg)
How it happened
"Scott Farquhar, the founder of Atlassian got involved and we started getting introduced to people in Silicon Valley," Anear said.
"We spent a lot of time getting to know the investors because we knew once we gave away that equity in our business we would never get it back," he said.
Anear emphasised the importance of getting as much information as possible.
"We knew Kwan had brokered the multibillion sale of WhatsApp to Facebook and he introduces us to Index, who are a major investor in Slack, so we spoke to Slack about their experience with Index."
So what's the hardest part?
"The amount of documentation is just insane," Anear said.
"To have investors in different parts of the world and getting the sequencing of the signatures makes it a very drawn-out process with lots of back and forth. If you can have very simple terms that makes it easier for future investors, that is ideal but it takes time. We pushed for very clean, vanilla terms which is what all founders should push for."
Small town, big cities
Asked if SafetyCulture had any plans to move to the US, Anear said no. He plans to resist the temptation to leave Townsville for as long as possible.
"Townsville is home for me. There's not necessarily a huge amount of start-up activity here, we are definitely the main event.
"We plan to keep the product here in Australia, we do have US and UK teams and they're servicing and supporting our customers. We've never had sales or marketing teams so it's probably time to invest in that."
The company has staff in Sydney, Townsville, Kansas, San Francisco and the UK but plans to double that headcount in the next year.
"It's not a goal per se, but it's just what will happen," Anear said.