Compass TV’s new Signal business show will be featuring ‘Business Incubators’ on a regular basis. This week, we sit down with Arthur Branney, CEO of Safely Together.
Signal: Give us a brief story of Safely Together SEZC
Arthur Branney: The company was founded this year, although the idea has been developing over several years. It was really created to address crime and public safety concerns anonymously. There have been incidents such as serious sexual assaults at universities, the George Floyd case, and many situations where evidence from phones, videos, photographs and location data took police months to gather and process.
What our platform does is remove a lot of that noise. The app uses GPS location technology to identify where incidents happen and package the evidence quickly for law enforcement to use. This saves time and resources for the police, so this, in and of itself, should bring crime rates down, with more prosecutions, making communities safer.
Even here in Cayman, crime rose by 7% last year. While some offences, such as drug crimes, have relatively high solve rates (79%), other crimes such as robberies remain much lower (only 17%). Our aim is to help make communities safer and allow people to report crime anonymously without fear of reprisals.
Can you describe your product?
A: The app allows users to report crime anonymously and receive real-time safety alerts. For example, if there is a crime taking place nearby, users can see that through the app and avoid the area.
We also have a flash reporting function. In situations such as an active shooter incident, alerts can immediately be sent to an entire school or organisation, giving staff and students valuable seconds to lock down or evacuate, saving lives and reducing casualties.
There is also a ‘Follow Me’ function. If I am walking through an unfamiliar or potentially unsafe area, someone on my approved contact list within the app can track my journey and make sure I get home safely. You can also see recent incidents in your immediate area, so avoid that area completely. Users can also upload photos and videos. These are location-tagged automatically, making it easier for police to identify where incidents occurred. The location tagging also helps police find you if there is an active incident ongoing.
In addition, the app includes emergency calling functionality from anywhere in the world. It uses GPS to identify your location and automatically connects you to the correct emergency services in that country or region without leaving the app.
How can your product help people?
The core aim is to make communities safer. Roughly half of crimes globally go unreported. One reason is that people lose confidence when they see low solve rates. We are not trying to criticise the police; the goal is to augment policing through our intelligence-led tools and dashboards.
Police would receive access to a dashboard showing live incident reporting. If multiple people report the same event, authorities immediately know something serious may be happening. That could help gather evidence more quickly and get dangerous individuals off the streets faster.
Is this a Cayman-focused product?
No. Safely Together is proudly Cayman-based, we are established within the Special Economic Zone, but the product is designed for global use. We are actually planning our initial pilot launch in Uganda.
Uganda represents what is known as a blue-ocean market, meaning there is effectively no direct competition there. The population is around 52 million people, compared with roughly 90,000 in Cayman. We are also in discussions with a security firm in Uganda that could help us penetrate the market. Wider markets presents the opportunity to tweak functionality. Once we refine the product through that pilot, we intend to bring it fully into Cayman and work with local law enforcement here as well.
How will it make money?
The model is subscription-based. We have deliberately kept pricing affordable because we want the platform to be widely accessible. We are also targeting institutional partnerships with schools, colleges, NGOs such as the UN.
Longer term, we want to provide police dashboards powered by live crime-reporting data. That would also operate on a subscription model. We are additionally exploring AI-driven predictive policing tools, where crime data could help identify areas at higher risk and allow police to allocate resources proactively rather than reactively.
What makes Safely Together stand out?
There is nothing currently like this in Cayman, and only a small number of similar products globally.
What makes us different is the combination of software and hardware integration. We are exploring partnerships with alarm and security systems so that the app can work alongside physical security infrastructure by protecting people in their homes, and also further afield using the Safely Together app.
Another key differentiator is the evidence-capture capability. Even if someone steals your phone during a crime, the evidence has already been uploaded securely to the cloud.
What’s next?
We are preparing for launch within the next few weeks. The focus after that is scaling adoption through schools, universities, NGOs and institutions operating in higher-risk areas.
We are also pursuing strategic technology partnerships. For example, partnering with security providers in Cayman could allow us to combine live crime reporting with rapid response capabilities.
What type of investment are you looking for?
Technically, we can launch without investment, but ideally we are looking to raise around $300,000. That would be for approximately 5% equity in the company, implying a pre-money valuation of around $6 million. Why this valuation? I’ve built and developed highly successful businesses before, including here in Cayman, so my thoughts are that this is fair due to the market conditions we’ll be launching into.
The valuation is based on prior experience and growth potential. We are also looking for strategic investors who can help open doors to new sectors and markets, not just provide capital. The funding would support faster growth, expansion into new markets, AI development and further platform enhancement which would produce a far faster return on investment.
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