Technology and services

    Investing in workplace fatality prevention software

    Supporting the growth of an Australian-based software company focused on preventing fatalities in high-risk work environments

    Sector Technology and services
    Sub-sector Software
    Location Australia

    Opportunity

    Forwood provides safety software to companies in high-risk industries globally, including mining, construction, and utilities.

    The company’s core product is Critical Risk Management (Forwood CRM), a Software as a Service (SaaS) end-to-end AI-driven fatality prevention solution that helps strengthen a client’s critical controls and risk management culture.

    There are approximately 2.3 million accidental work-related fatalities each year, with a disproportionate number happening in the mining and construction industries and developing countries.1 As societal expectations on organisations to provide a safe place to work grow, legislative requirements become stricter and penalties for falling short of safety standards increase, there’s an increasing focus on staff safety and wellbeing across industries worldwide, especially those deemed ‘high risk’.


    Approach

    In 2022, Forwood sought an investment partner to help fund product development and expand its operations internationally.

    Macquarie Capital’s Venture Capital (MCVC) team has a long track record of successfully investing in Australian software companies, using sector expertise to support global development and expansion in a capital-efficient way.

    The MCVC team were impressed by the material improvement in safety standards at Forwood’s customer sites and how Forwood was contributing to making workplaces safer. Forwood also stood out due to its capital efficient growth that was entirely self-funded prior to MCVC’s investment.

    Outcome

    Since MCVC’s investment, Forwood’s annualised contract value has more than doubled over the financial year to June 2023.

    Forwood CRM has now been implemented across more than 800 sites globally and all of these sites have remained fatality free since the full deployment of Forwood CRM.2

    MCVC’s investment allows Forwood to increase its footprint in the mining industry, expand into other high-risk industries, and develop new products. These include software to manage catastrophic risks, artificial intelligence and video analytics to monitor safe behaviours and conditions, and software to help companies comply with multiple environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks.

    Partnering with Macquarie has been a fantastic journey and the engagement model with Forwood has been high value-add and supportive. Having them as an investment partner has allowed us to expand our vision of making the world a safer place to work by providing innovative safety solutions wherever human life is at risk to more clients, industries and global locations.”

    Steve Wood
    Forwood Founder and CEO

    Forwood’s founder was involved in a workplace accident and has since dedicated his career to eliminating fatalities and serious injuries in the workplace – what Forwood calls “Mission Zero”.

    800+

    sites have implemented Forwood CRM globally2

    0 fatalities

    recorded on site by companies since the full deployment of Forwood CRM2

    200 million+

    anonymised critical control data points generated by Forwood CRM users2

    3-tiered

    verification methodology to triple cross-check on all critical risks and controls

    1. ‘World Statistic’, The International Labour Organisation, https://www.ilo.org/moscow/areas-of-work/occupational-safety-and-health, accessed October 2023.
    2. ‘Critical Risk Management (CRM)’, Forwood, https://forwoodsafety.com/critical-risk-management, accessed October 2023.

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