New Zealand-founded retail crime intelligence company Auror says retailers around the world are increasingly turning to its technology to help combat organised retail crime, as the firm expands into more than 85,000 stores globally and reports annual revenue growth of 60%.
Auror provides software that allows retailers to record theft, violence and repeat offending across store networks, helping businesses and police identify organised offending patterns more quickly.
Founder and chief executive officer Phil Thomson said much of the company’s recent expansion had been driven by existing retail customers taking Auror into overseas markets.
“What’s really cool is that we’re being pulled by our customers – they’re seeing the value in what we do, and so they’re pulling us into markets that they’ve got stores in as well,” he said.
Despite Auror’s growing international footprint, Thomson said the company continued to see New Zealand as an important testing ground for innovation.
“While only 10% of our revenue probably comes from this market now… we overinvest and over-optimise here. It’s a great place to start a company and as a test market.”
Auror secured $82 million in fresh funding late last year in a Series C round led by US security giant Axon, pushing the company’s valuation beyond $500 million.
Thomson said building trust in overseas markets had taken time, particularly in the United States.
“If you look at the US, probably a great example for us… The three questions that we often got were ‘Are you a US company? Who are your US customers? And where is New Zealand? ’” he said.
“Even though we had great credibility down here in New Zealand and Australia, we had to start again.”
As retail crime continues to rise globally, Auror said technology was helping retailers and police respond more effectively to repeat and organised offending.
“The police being more efficient is never a bad thing if they’re solving more crime.”
The company has also faced questions around privacy and facial recognition technology. Auror said its core platform does not operate cameras or hardware directly, and retailers are prohibited from entering sensitive personal information such as race, religion or political affiliation into the system.
Its optional subject recognition feature can integrate with retailer camera systems and includes governance controls designed to support responsible use.