BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Floods, shootings, lockdowns, wildfires, blizzards, evacuations, assaults. Not only do these things happen, but they actually happen all the time. And thanks to climate change, political uncertainty, and the internet, the frequency and severity of "Black Swan" events are increasing.
Meanwhile, smartphones are nearly ubiquitous, disaster-related citizen engagement and volunteerism is high, and cities are mobilizing behind smart (IoT), safe (UN), and resilient (Rockefeller Foundation) cities movements.
RallyEngine aims to be the knitting for smart, safe, resilient cities by providing an efficient way to alert groups, rally teams, and enhance community capacity.
VALUE PROPOSITION
Resilience-as-a-Service.
RallyEngine offers a suite of safety and emergency services – including alerting, private channels, helpline/tipline, work/study-alone, sexual violence reporting, and volunteer task matching, as the client needs.
More than simply basic alerting, we focus on what happens before (prevention, awareness) and after the alert (rallying, tasking) to offer a more complete tool.
In addition to the modular approach, RallyEngine is more instantly scalable (our servers run hot to hit big spikes), secure (origins with law enforcement), and nimble (for emergent incidents) than competing products. It's easy to use and can save assets – and even lives – during crises.
MARKET INFORMATION
We estimate the Total Addressable Market to be approximately $500M in Canada and over $34B globally (10% of $342.4B, according to BCC Research "Smart Cities: Growing New IT Markets)".
The market is undoubtedly growing:
- The frequency and severity of disasters (such as those related to climate change and terrorism concerns) are increasing. In just the past four years, Alberta has had two of Canada's most expensive natural disasters (the 2013 Southern Alberta floods and the 2016 Wood Buffalo wildfires). Witness the string of major Atlantic hurricanes this season.
- Progressive cities are now establishing Chief Resilience Offices and Officers.
- Universities and colleges are now expected to have mobile emergency systems.
- Sexual violence, in particular, is a major reputational issue for campuses, law enforcement, and military.
- Opportunities to integrate with Smart City infrastructure, IoT sensors, and AI are quickly opening up.
COMPETITION
We operate in a mixed field of competitors – including legacy tools like spreadsheets and call-lists. There are a couple major post-911 players at the high-end (Everbridge, which had a $329M IPO last year, and AtHoc which BlackBerry acquired in 2015) and a number of small, shallow niche apps at the low-end (eg. AppArmor in the campus space).
Compared against the "kitchen-sink" competitors we're more modern, mobile, user-friendly, versatile, and affordable. Against low-end competitors, we're more robust, secure, and complete. We believe that the real growth in the sector will happen amongst many smaller organizations, where nimble, mobile-focused, and SaaS are priorities.
SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGIES
Our sales and marketing strategy is three-pronged:
- Safe Campuses - Universities and colleges with notification, study-alone, and sexual violence reporting needs.
- Smart Cities - Resilient municipalities with Citizen Emergency Response Teams and Citizen Corps volunteer initiatives.
- International Organizations - Mid-sized city-like companies (including malls, airports, and property/event managers) with dispersed workforces and the safety and business continuity oversight for multiple stakeholder organizations/tenants.
All three of these verticals converge on the "smart, safe, resilient city", which includes marrying the Internet of Things with our Internet of People – particularly for matters of public safety.