An Orchard Park-based spinoff startup just raised a seed funding round.
TeleSafety, a mobile app that gives companies access to credentialed safety experts for advice, closed early this year a $230,000 seed round led by Launch NY.
The startup, based at 3730 California Road in Orchard Park, is the brainchild of John Coniglio and his sons Joe and Jake. About 33 years ago John founded Occupational Safety & Environmental Associations, or OSEA, a occupational health consulting firm.
It was through the consulting business and its clients that the Coniglios realized there was a gap between small to mid-sized companies being able to employ safety measures to keep workers safe. It’s an expensive and niche role.
TeleSafety officially spun out from OSEA in 2021.
“The idea of having an on-call safety expert, if you will, to answer questions through the app in real time was a huge hit,” said Joe Coniglio.
He and his brother Jake focus on TeleSafety, while John works for both the startup and OSEA.
After bootstrapping about $175,000 themselves, the team raised a seed round largely to focus on customer acquisition efforts, including adding an outside sales rep. A small portion of the monies will go toward app and software updates as needed.
TeleSafety, which employs four, started beta testing in 2019, did a private release starting in late 2020 and did a full, public release early this year. The app currently has about 180 users representing roughly 120 companies.
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Customers’ industries range from construction and manufacturing to insurance. The platform includes an accident, incident and property damage reporting system and automated Occupational Safety and Health Administration reporting.
The app also has quick-hit, vignette-style trainings, but the startup is working to launch a full online training program, such as a one-hour hazardous materials course, by end of Q2 2024. The business started early this year offering a corporate health and safety manual program where, based on an industry’s programs and policies required by OSHA, the startup digitally delivers a customer a health and safety manual.
Currently, TeleSafety is working on leveraging technology to increase its speed, which is currently within 10 minutes or less, to answer clients.
“We give them the tools, training and then we give them a way to report it and check it,” said Joe Coniglio. “And that seems to be working really well.”
TeleSafety is the first local company to acknowledge a private, growth-oriented round of funding this year.
Fifteen companies collectively raised about $30 million in 2023: Azuna ($3 million), Immunaeon ($600,000), Latte ($100,000), Aerovec ($178,000), CleanFiber ($6.7 million), HELIXintel ($11 million), CaHill Tech ($250,000), FoodNerd ($1 million), LenderLogix ($500,000), SelectFI ($1.985 million), AireXpert ($3 million), Diadem Capital ($600,000), Arbol ($850,000) and Swift Rails ($225,000).
