Stockholm-based AI workplace safety platform Buddywise has announced a new €3.5m seed round.
The round was co-led by Helsinki-based industrial technology fund Kvanted data and AI specialist fund J12, joined by existing investors Aligned and Antler. A group of high-profile angel investors including Hans Stråberg (chair at Atlas Copco and SKF), Hans-Olov Blom (founder of Ramudden Global) and Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss (founder of Soundcloud) also participated in the round.
With the new capital, Buddywise aims to accelerate the recruitment of top commercial and tech talent, as well as further expand its existing customer base of international industrial enterprises to initiate the company’s commercial expansion across Europe.
Workplace health and safety: A rising global concern
According to the International Labor Organisation, nearly three million workers die every year due to work-related accidents and diseases. Furthermore, there are more than 395m serious accidents annually, causing lifelong injuries for workers globally. The total economic loss from work-related deaths and disability-adjusted life years equates to 6% of the global GDP.
In the EU, there were 2.9m non-fatal accidents that resulted in at least four calendar days of absence from work and over 3,000 fatal accidents in 2021. Over a fifth of all fatal workplace accidents in the EU occurred within the construction sector.
Buddywise’s solution uses AI and computer vision to identify real-time safety risks in the workplace.
The platform enables safety leaders and management to immediately take action at the earliest indication of risk, and proactively mitigate hazards as the 24/7 collection of data generates continuous insights to learn and act upon. This technology can significantly increase the protection of teams working on industrial sites, and has the potential to disrupt workplace safety practices across Europe and beyond.
Lamin Faye, co-founder and CEO at Buddywise, said: “Everybody should be able to return home unharmed after a day’s work, so we can’t accept the status quo. Every accident can be prevented and with Buddywise operational and safety leaders can finally get the real-time data they need to do so. The new funding means that we can bring more customers towards their zero-injury vision and we will invest heavily into our ability to enable learning and action based on our data-driven insights.”
