Pizza arrived faster than help in SA: AURA has been closing that gap - Justin Suttner
Emergency responses in South Africa has long been slowed by poor reaction times and overstretched public services. Justin Suttner of AURA , a tech driven marketplace for emergency services, says that when they launched in 2017 it was quicker to get a taxi or even a pizza delivered than to receive medical help. That frustration, he told BizNews , became the catalyst for AURA's mission to connect people instantly to the nearest private responder, whether medical , security or roadside assistance. Since then, major brands including Uber, Investec , Trancker, FNB, Outsurance, Momentum and Fedility have integrated AURA's services into their products. From its South African base , AURA has expanded across Africa, Europe and the US. The platform also fills a growing gap where police no longer need to respond to alarm activations. With U$15 million in new Series B funding, AURA is preparing for its next phase of growth. Suttner says there is strong interest from Egypt and India, and the company aims to deepen its footprint in Sub- Saharan Africa and beyond.
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South Africa’s emergency response system has long faced challenges: slow reaction times, overstretched public services and limited access to private responders for most citizens. It was this stark reality that led to the founding of AURA, a homegrown technology platform now redefining how people access emergency assistance - not only in South Africa, but around the world.
In a conversation with Linda van Tilburg, Justin Suttner, General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at AURA, explains that the idea behind the company emerged in 2017 from a simple but troubling observation: it was often faster to order a taxi or a pizza than to receive help during an emergency. Despite South Africa having one of the world’s largest private security and medical response industries, access to these services was largely restricted to those who could afford expensive alarms and monitoring contracts.
AURA was created to address this imbalance. Its founding vision was to democratise access to private emergency response services, ensuring that safety was no longer a privilege reserved for a select few. “We wanted to create a world where everyone is safe,” says Suttner, “by enabling access to emergency response for the mass population.”
Crucially, AURA is not an app, nor is it a security or medical company. Instead, it operates as a technology marketplace platform. AURA aggregates thousands of vetted private security and medical responders onto a single system and connects them to people in distress using proprietary algorithms. When an alert is triggered, the platform identifies and dispatches the nearest appropriate responder in real time.
The business initially launched as a business-to-business model, partnering with major corporates that embed AURA’s services into their own offerings. These partners include banks, insurers, telematics companies and global platforms such as Uber. Today, AURA powers emergency response features for a wide range of organisations, including FNB, Momentum, Tracker, Investec and OUTsurance, allowing customers and employees to access help through apps, panic buttons or phone numbers.
When an emergency signal is activated, AURA’s platform immediately processes the alert, locates the individual and pairs them with the closest private responder - whether security or medical - ensuring faster and more efficient assistance. This model allows AURA to scale rapidly without owning response vehicles or personnel, while maintaining strict vetting and performance standards.
What began as a South African solution has since evolved into a global platform. AURA now operates across three continents, with established businesses in Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States, alongside operations in Namibia, Uganda and Ghana. Each market presents its own challenges and use cases.
In the UK, for example, police no longer routinely respond to alarm activations at residential and commercial properties. This has created a significant gap, which AURA addresses by coordinating private responders to verify and triage incidents. While the operating model differs slightly from South Africa, the core technology remains the same: using location data and intelligent matching to deliver fast, reliable response.
The United States presents a similar opportunity. With police services in certain cities and states increasingly unable to respond to alarm calls, AURA launched its US operations in Dallas, Texas, and has since expanded rapidly across the country - faster than initially anticipated.
Looking ahead, expansion remains a central focus. Suttner notes growing opportunities across Africa, including Egypt and further growth in Ghana and Namibia, as well as potential future markets such as India. “We’re operating in a really exciting space,” he says. “In many markets, we’re the first to offer something like this.”
Despite its global growth, AURA’s mission remains unchanged: to create safer communities by making emergency response accessible, efficient and inclusive - for people and property alike. As Suttner puts it, “That’s our core focus, and it’s something we’re never going to stop delivering on.”